Manuela Perrotta
Biographic Data
| ID | 187146 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Manuela Perrotta |
| GIVEN NAMES | Manuela |
| FAMILY NAME | Perrotta |
| SIGNATURE | PERROTTA M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Queen Mary University of London |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8278-697X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 41 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 15 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
A paradigm shift in fertility care? Discourses on AI for IVF in the Netherlands and the UK
Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly promoted as a transformative innovation in in vitro fertilization (IVF), particularly for embryo selection. This article examines how discourses surrounding AI in IVF reflect broader shifts in medical paradigms and market logics. Drawing on a comparative critical discourse analysis of clinic websites, media texts and professional publications in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, we explore how st…
“I want to be able to say that I did everything I could”. Exploring the negotiations between the logic of care and the logic of research in clinical trials
Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs) are considered the "gold standard" for producing medical evidence due to their emphasis on standardisation, control, and scientific rigour. However, staff often face challenges in adhering to protocols, as running trials can generate tensions with caring for participants as individuals. In this article, drawing on Annemarie Mol's concept of the 'logic of care', we explore how care and research are continually n…
Using interview excerpts to facilitate focus group discussion
The use of interviews and focus groups is well-established in the social science methods literature. However, discussion on how research can combine these two methods in creative ways is less common. While researchers are generally aware of the potential of focus groups for further probing issues that emerge in one-on-one interviews, few studies detail how this might be achieved in practice. In this article, we describe and reflect on a focus gro…
Blurring the divide
It is widely assumed that fertility patients in the UK are either privately funded or publicly funded through the National Health Service. This article challenges this distinction and demonstrates how the boundaries between public and private fertility treatment provision are increasingly blurred. It draws on interviews with 42 fertility patients and partners who had accessed in vitro fertilisation (IVF) through both the National Health Service a…
Predicting Success in the Embryology Lab
This article analyzes local algorithmic practices resulting from the increased use of time-lapse (TL) imaging in fertility treatment. The data produced by TL technologies are expected to help professionals pick the best embryo for implantation. The emergence of TL has been characterized by promissory discourses of deeper embryo knowledge and expanded selection standardization, despite professionals having no conclusive evidence that TL improves p…
Accounting for complexity in healthcare innovation debates
Social scientists have long been interested in the forces and values driving healthcare innovation. The simultaneous rise of 20th century healthcare reforms, increased importance of evidence and upsurge in lay health activism have shaped modern medicine. On this backdrop, fertility care emerged in the 1970s. Recent developments reveal a contentious relationship between new fertility treatments and clinical evidence, with emerging technologies bei…
Watching embryos
New biomedical imaging technologies, which enable embryologists to observe the development of human embryos, are presenting new possibilities for the lived geographies of assisted reproduction. More specifically, these technologies produce novel visual representations of in vitro embryos that can be shared with fertility patients as a way to involve them in their treatment, and we explore how this imagery circulates in places and relationships be…
Patient informed choice in the age of evidence-based medicine
With the increasing offer of fertility treatment by a largely privatised sector, which has involved the proliferation of treatment add-ons lacking evidence of effectiveness, In-Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) patients are expected to make informed choices on what to include in their treatment. Drawing on interviews with 51 individuals undergoing fertility treatment, this article explores patients' approaches to medical evidence interpretation and its r…
The crafting of hope
The proliferation and popularity of additional treatments in IVF, also known as add-ons, has generated widespread discussion and controversy in the UK, where concerns have addressed the lack of evidence to support the efficacy and safety of these treatments, their cost, and their connection to a wider context of privatisation of fertility treatment. Drawing on 42 interviews with IVF patients, this article explores the role of hope in the appeal o…
Enacting evidence-based medicine in fertility care
In this article we explore the recent enactment of evidence-based medicine (EBM) in the field of fertility care. We aim to contribute to the medical sociology literature through an analysis of how evidence is produced, interpreted and institutionalised in a relatively new medical field such as in vitro fertilisation (IVF), characterised by high uncertainty due to limited knowledge and high levels of commercialisation. Drawing on extensive ethnogr…
The trouble with IVF and randomised control trials
Focusing on the case of time-lapse imaging (TLI), this paper analyses how medical professionals negotiate the use of new 'add-on' fertility treatments in light of the limited evidence available. The data produced by TLI technologies is meant to help professionals identify the best embryo to be implanted. Embryo selection is essential in IVF practice for increasing pregnancy rates and reducing the negative effects of repeated failures. More than 5…
Reproductive Medicine and the Life Sciences in the Contemporary Economy. A Sociomaterial Perspective
Alexander Styhre and Rebecka Arman. Gower 2013
Daughters taking over the family business
Purpose – This paper aims to explore gender and legitimacy in family business succession. Design/methodology/approach – Within the theoretical framework of French pragmatic sociology, the authors conceptualise the family business as the locus where two regimes of engagement are present, generating the co-presence of two orders of worth, namely the domestic and the industrial. Taking a processual approach to entrepreneuring, and using case studies…
Between the hand and the head
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to add a new term to the vocabulary of practice-based studies: “formativeness”, which denotes the kind of knowledge that is generated in the process of realizing the object of the practice and that is discovered while the form of the object is being shaped. This term focuses the analysis on how the elements of a practice are held together, rather than on what elements are involved in a practice. Design/metho…
Egg dates sperm
The aim of this article is to enlarge practice-based studies to the consideration of institutional environment and institutional work, opening a dialogue with neo-institutionalism and, in so doing, advance the growing field of sociology of practice. This study attempts to do this by answering the question: how does a change in a practice become stabilized and what does the new practice do, once stabilized? Within practice-based studies, most stud…
The trouble with IVF and randomised control trials
Focusing on the case of time-lapse imaging (TLI), this paper analyses how medical professionals negotiate the use of new 'add-on' fertility treatments in light of the limited evidence available. The data produced by TLI technologies is meant to help professionals identify the best embryo to be implanted. Embryo selection is essential in IVF practice for increasing pregnancy rates and reducing the negative effects of repeated failures. More than 5…
The crafting of hope
The proliferation and popularity of additional treatments in IVF, also known as add-ons, has generated widespread discussion and controversy in the UK, where concerns have addressed the lack of evidence to support the efficacy and safety of these treatments, their cost, and their connection to a wider context of privatisation of fertility treatment. Drawing on 42 interviews with IVF patients, this article explores the role of hope in the appeal o…
Predicting Success in the Embryology Lab
This article analyzes local algorithmic practices resulting from the increased use of time-lapse (TL) imaging in fertility treatment. The data produced by TL technologies are expected to help professionals pick the best embryo for implantation. The emergence of TL has been characterized by promissory discourses of deeper embryo knowledge and expanded selection standardization, despite professionals having no conclusive evidence that TL improves p…
Enacting evidence-based medicine in fertility care
In this article we explore the recent enactment of evidence-based medicine (EBM) in the field of fertility care. We aim to contribute to the medical sociology literature through an analysis of how evidence is produced, interpreted and institutionalised in a relatively new medical field such as in vitro fertilisation (IVF), characterised by high uncertainty due to limited knowledge and high levels of commercialisation. Drawing on extensive ethnogr…
Daughters taking over the family business
Purpose – This paper aims to explore gender and legitimacy in family business succession. Design/methodology/approach – Within the theoretical framework of French pragmatic sociology, the authors conceptualise the family business as the locus where two regimes of engagement are present, generating the co-presence of two orders of worth, namely the domestic and the industrial. Taking a processual approach to entrepreneuring, and using case studies…
Watching embryos
New biomedical imaging technologies, which enable embryologists to observe the development of human embryos, are presenting new possibilities for the lived geographies of assisted reproduction. More specifically, these technologies produce novel visual representations of in vitro embryos that can be shared with fertility patients as a way to involve them in their treatment, and we explore how this imagery circulates in places and relationships be…
Patient informed choice in the age of evidence-based medicine
With the increasing offer of fertility treatment by a largely privatised sector, which has involved the proliferation of treatment add-ons lacking evidence of effectiveness, In-Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) patients are expected to make informed choices on what to include in their treatment. Drawing on interviews with 51 individuals undergoing fertility treatment, this article explores patients' approaches to medical evidence interpretation and its r…
Using interview excerpts to facilitate focus group discussion
The use of interviews and focus groups is well-established in the social science methods literature. However, discussion on how research can combine these two methods in creative ways is less common. While researchers are generally aware of the potential of focus groups for further probing issues that emerge in one-on-one interviews, few studies detail how this might be achieved in practice. In this article, we describe and reflect on a focus gro…
Blurring the divide
It is widely assumed that fertility patients in the UK are either privately funded or publicly funded through the National Health Service. This article challenges this distinction and demonstrates how the boundaries between public and private fertility treatment provision are increasingly blurred. It draws on interviews with 42 fertility patients and partners who had accessed in vitro fertilisation (IVF) through both the National Health Service a…
Egg dates sperm
The aim of this article is to enlarge practice-based studies to the consideration of institutional environment and institutional work, opening a dialogue with neo-institutionalism and, in so doing, advance the growing field of sociology of practice. This study attempts to do this by answering the question: how does a change in a practice become stabilized and what does the new practice do, once stabilized? Within practice-based studies, most stud…
Between the hand and the head
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to add a new term to the vocabulary of practice-based studies: “formativeness”, which denotes the kind of knowledge that is generated in the process of realizing the object of the practice and that is discovered while the form of the object is being shaped. This term focuses the analysis on how the elements of a practice are held together, rather than on what elements are involved in a practice. Design/metho…
Reproductive Medicine and the Life Sciences in the Contemporary Economy. A Sociomaterial Perspective
Alexander Styhre and Rebecka Arman. Gower 2013
Daughters taking over the family business
Purpose – This paper aims to explore gender and legitimacy in family business succession. Design/methodology/approach – Within the theoretical framework of French pragmatic sociology, the authors conceptualise the family business as the locus where two regimes of engagement are present, generating the co-presence of two orders of worth, namely the domestic and the industrial. Taking a processual approach to entrepreneuring, and using case studies…
The trouble with IVF and randomised control trials
Focusing on the case of time-lapse imaging (TLI), this paper analyses how medical professionals negotiate the use of new 'add-on' fertility treatments in light of the limited evidence available. The data produced by TLI technologies is meant to help professionals identify the best embryo to be implanted. Embryo selection is essential in IVF practice for increasing pregnancy rates and reducing the negative effects of repeated failures. More than 5…
The crafting of hope
The proliferation and popularity of additional treatments in IVF, also known as add-ons, has generated widespread discussion and controversy in the UK, where concerns have addressed the lack of evidence to support the efficacy and safety of these treatments, their cost, and their connection to a wider context of privatisation of fertility treatment. Drawing on 42 interviews with IVF patients, this article explores the role of hope in the appeal o…
Enacting evidence-based medicine in fertility care
In this article we explore the recent enactment of evidence-based medicine (EBM) in the field of fertility care. We aim to contribute to the medical sociology literature through an analysis of how evidence is produced, interpreted and institutionalised in a relatively new medical field such as in vitro fertilisation (IVF), characterised by high uncertainty due to limited knowledge and high levels of commercialisation. Drawing on extensive ethnogr…
Blurring the divide
It is widely assumed that fertility patients in the UK are either privately funded or publicly funded through the National Health Service. This article challenges this distinction and demonstrates how the boundaries between public and private fertility treatment provision are increasingly blurred. It draws on interviews with 42 fertility patients and partners who had accessed in vitro fertilisation (IVF) through both the National Health Service a…
Predicting Success in the Embryology Lab
This article analyzes local algorithmic practices resulting from the increased use of time-lapse (TL) imaging in fertility treatment. The data produced by TL technologies are expected to help professionals pick the best embryo for implantation. The emergence of TL has been characterized by promissory discourses of deeper embryo knowledge and expanded selection standardization, despite professionals having no conclusive evidence that TL improves p…
Accounting for complexity in healthcare innovation debates
Social scientists have long been interested in the forces and values driving healthcare innovation. The simultaneous rise of 20th century healthcare reforms, increased importance of evidence and upsurge in lay health activism have shaped modern medicine. On this backdrop, fertility care emerged in the 1970s. Recent developments reveal a contentious relationship between new fertility treatments and clinical evidence, with emerging technologies bei…
Watching embryos
New biomedical imaging technologies, which enable embryologists to observe the development of human embryos, are presenting new possibilities for the lived geographies of assisted reproduction. More specifically, these technologies produce novel visual representations of in vitro embryos that can be shared with fertility patients as a way to involve them in their treatment, and we explore how this imagery circulates in places and relationships be…
Patient informed choice in the age of evidence-based medicine
With the increasing offer of fertility treatment by a largely privatised sector, which has involved the proliferation of treatment add-ons lacking evidence of effectiveness, In-Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) patients are expected to make informed choices on what to include in their treatment. Drawing on interviews with 51 individuals undergoing fertility treatment, this article explores patients' approaches to medical evidence interpretation and its r…
Using interview excerpts to facilitate focus group discussion
The use of interviews and focus groups is well-established in the social science methods literature. However, discussion on how research can combine these two methods in creative ways is less common. While researchers are generally aware of the potential of focus groups for further probing issues that emerge in one-on-one interviews, few studies detail how this might be achieved in practice. In this article, we describe and reflect on a focus gro…
A paradigm shift in fertility care? Discourses on AI for IVF in the Netherlands and the UK
Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly promoted as a transformative innovation in in vitro fertilization (IVF), particularly for embryo selection. This article examines how discourses surrounding AI in IVF reflect broader shifts in medical paradigms and market logics. Drawing on a comparative critical discourse analysis of clinic websites, media texts and professional publications in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, we explore how st…
“I want to be able to say that I did everything I could”. Exploring the negotiations between the logic of care and the logic of research in clinical trials
Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs) are considered the "gold standard" for producing medical evidence due to their emphasis on standardisation, control, and scientific rigour. However, staff often face challenges in adhering to protocols, as running trials can generate tensions with caring for participants as individuals. In this article, drawing on Annemarie Mol's concept of the 'logic of care', we explore how care and research are continually n…
Sociology (12 works) · Reproductive Health and Technologies (9 works) · Fertility (8 works) · Political science (8 works) · Law (7 works) · Social science (7 works) · Epistemology (6 works) · Psychology (6 works) · Public relations (6 works) · Medicine (5 works)