Isard, Holly (2024) The Transparent Womb: Gestational Labour and Reproductive Machines. Doctoral thesis, University of West London.

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Abstract

The word ‘labour’ can be used to connect two apparently separate actions: workers ‘labour’ to produce, pregnant people go into ‘labour’ when they are ready to give birth; this thesis argues that the two are inseparable. In 2019 Kirstin Munro wrote that ‘a more rigorous theory of the role of the gestational work in the production of value and surplus-value in capitalism is sorely needed’ (2019a: 477). Taking up this call to theory through an analysis of both the political economy and cultural politics of pregnancy, this thesis contributes to a recent revival in scholarship of Mary O’Brien’s (1981) term ‘gestational labour’ (Lewis, 2019d). Drawing on two bodies of literature, Marxist feminism and writings on biocapitalism, the thesis attempts
to define ‘gestational labour’, with a particular focus on the role of assisted reproductive technologies post-1978.
Rather than sticking solely to the realms of value-theory I turn to the cultural imaginary to better articulate what we mean by gestational labour. Doing so reveals the importance of the role of representation and cultural politics in shaping understandings of pregnancy – a dialectical relationship emerges. Through focusing on two artificial wombs as case studies, the thesis offers a critical reading of the ways in which the body and related gestational
processes are understood today, wherein new metaphors emerge for the reproductive body in late capitalism. Across the thesis a gestational labour framework allows us to trouble the presumed ‘naturalness’ of pregnancy – de-gendering and denaturalising gestation. Looking both to the political economy of pregnancy in the directly market-mediated sphere (surrogacy, egg freezing, IVF, artificial wombs) and indirectly market-mediated sphere (so called ‘normal’ pregnancy) (Endnotes, 2013), I argue that gestational labour is doubly reproductive – it produces the special commodity labour-power, but also the cultural status of pregnancy in relation to gender, work, technology, and society under capitalism.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Identifier:	10.36828/thesis/13413
Subjects:	Social sciences > Communication and culture
Depositing User:	Marc Forster
Date Deposited:	02 Apr 2025 09:27
Last Modified:	02 Apr 2025 09:30
URI:	https://repository.uwl.ac.uk/id/eprint/13413

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