Seeing and Knowing the Womb: A Technofeminist Reframing of Fetal Ultrasound toward a Decolonization of Our Bodies

• Published in: Computers and composition 2017-03, Vol.43, p.88-105
• Main Authors: Frost, Erin A., Haas, Angela M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: (in)fertility rhetorics; body-monitoring technologies; decolonization; desire; embodiment; fetal ultrasound; pregnancy; surveillance; technofeminism; visual culture
• ISSN: 8755-4615; 1873-2011
• DOI: 10.1016/j.compcom.2016.11.004

This article demonstrates that our relationships with body-monitoring technologies often prescribed for our health benefits may also problematically prescribe our bodies and identities. Specifically, we look at the fetal ultrasound machine and interrogate the complex tensions between: the importance of it in Western pregnancy and infertility cultures; the ubiquity of sonogram images in Western visual culture; the diverse audiences for the technology and its visual artifacts; and the potential for hegemonic uptakes to undermine our agency. To do so, we employ a technofeminist methodology informed by decolonial, poststructuralist, rhetorical, visual culture, and embodiment theories. Our framework reveals that, despite the medical intentions of fetal ultrasound technology, colonial effects and rhetorics can emerge from our interfacing with it. Specifically, we aim to prove that decades of uncritical relationships with fetal ultrasound technologies have sponsored rhetorics and practices that contribute to colonial desires to position feminine bodies as new and open frontiers to explore and exploit—thereby positioning pregnant and potentially pregnant bodies as vulnerable to surveillance and fragmentation. Finally, we offer tactics for negotiating more empowering individual and community relationships with fetal ultrasound technology, the ultrasound procedure, and its visible artifacts.