Negotiating masculinities: reproductive technologies, biosocial exclusion and men’s engagements in Turkey

Abstract

This paper explores the ways how heterosexual middle-class men negotiate and readjust their role in the context of reproductive technologies, which are often seen as stereotypically a female terrain. Based on ethnographic research between 2009 and 2013 in three fertility clinics in Istanbul and on a digital self-help platform I pay close attention to men’s emerging practices in the context of Turkey, where the neoliberal-authoritarian JDP (Justice and Development Party) has reinforced patriarchal and traditional gender identities and roles over the last two decades. I draw upon anthropological perspectives on new and emergent masculinities, and also examine how these are constructed, performed and renegotiated both online and offline. This I do by focusing on men’s narratives of what I call biosocial exclusion and counterstrategies, when men designated their role as ‘outsiders’ and/or ‘sperm providers’ during treatment. I use this concept to discuss men’s understandings of themselves as reproductive actors and as parts of biosocial relations–the couple, family and society. I argue that there are transformations in practices of male biosocial subjects. I aim to capture the effects of the new biosocial relations of self-help, advocacy and activism of concerned people–both online and offline.