TY - JOUR

T1 - Putting Menopause on Ice

T2 - The Cryomedicalization of Reproductive Aging

AU - Kroløkke, Charlotte

AU - Bach, Anna Sofie

PY - 2020/6/7

Y1 - 2020/6/7

N2 - This article examines how cryopreserved ovarian tissue is potentiated as a menopausal prevention and/or treatment cure. Based on a multi-sited ethnographic study, the article empirically foregrounds scientific accounts and interviews with Danish female cancer patients who had ovarian tissue preserved. Using situational analysis as a methodological approach along with analytical perspectives on potentiality, we identify three framings revealing how cryotechnology intervenes with women’s reproductive aging: Cryopreservation as a risk management technology, as an optimizing technology, and as a synchronization technology. The article shows how the ability to cryopreserve ovarian tissue in order to reverse menopause draws upon an understanding of menopause as not only controllable but of cryopreservation as a resource-wise technology that manages women’s aging bodies. Suggesting “cryomedicalization” as a term, the article highlights how cryopreserved ovarian tissue (re)constitutes normative temporalities, produces new understandings of cryo-restoration and raises questions related to the cryopolitics of women’s aging.

AB - This article examines how cryopreserved ovarian tissue is potentiated as a menopausal prevention and/or treatment cure. Based on a multi-sited ethnographic study, the article empirically foregrounds scientific accounts and interviews with Danish female cancer patients who had ovarian tissue preserved. Using situational analysis as a methodological approach along with analytical perspectives on potentiality, we identify three framings revealing how cryotechnology intervenes with women’s reproductive aging: Cryopreservation as a risk management technology, as an optimizing technology, and as a synchronization technology. The article shows how the ability to cryopreserve ovarian tissue in order to reverse menopause draws upon an understanding of menopause as not only controllable but of cryopreservation as a resource-wise technology that manages women’s aging bodies. Suggesting “cryomedicalization” as a term, the article highlights how cryopreserved ovarian tissue (re)constitutes normative temporalities, produces new understandings of cryo-restoration and raises questions related to the cryopolitics of women’s aging.

UR - https://portal.findresearcher.sdu.dk/en/publications/82a2503c-a64f-4178-8a51-fa09814f29bf

U2 - 10.1080/14636778.2020.1775563

DO - 10.1080/14636778.2020.1775563

M3 - Journal article

JO - New Genetics and Society

JF - New Genetics and Society

SN - 1463-6778

ER -