K Dow
Biographic Data
| ID | 46235 |
|---|---|
| NAME | K Dow |
| GIVEN NAMES | K |
| FAMILY NAME | Dow |
| SIGNATURE | DOW K |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Cambridge |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9412-3316 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 39 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Squished Strawberries: Saving Seeds and Growing Community in a Hostile Environment
This article explores a case study from ethnographic research with seed-savers and seed activists in London. It discusses the experiences and reflections of Babu Roy, a working-class man of Indian and Kenyan heritage and veteran anti-racist activist, on the intimate relations between people and plants and how these relations can grow community amongst marginalised and racialised people in the UK's ‘hostile environment’ towards immigrants (see El-…
A Crude, Cruel Crisis
This article explores how some people have channeled their feelings about the climate crisis into reconsiderations around having children, centering biological reproduction as an ethical dilemma and political lever during climate collapse. Through analysis of interviews and testimonials and working with Lauren Berlant's concept of cruel optimism, the authors explore the emergence of a form of reproductive resistance and impasse whereby people are…
Adjusting the analytical aperture: Propositions for an integrated approach to the social study of reproductive technologies
The ever-expanding availability of reproductive technologies, the continued roll-out of ‘family planning’ and maternity services across low- and middle-income settings and the rapid development of the fertility industry mean that it is more likely than ever that individuals, especially women and gender non-conforming people, will engage with more than one RT at some point in their life. These multiple engagements with RTs will affect users’ expec…
Ringing the Existential Alarm: Exploring BirthStrike for Climate
Climate change is altering the horizon of a liveable future and as a result giving rise to a host of anxieties: ecological, demographic, reproductive, and existential. The BirthStrike for Climate collective was a group of people who were reconsidering reproduction as a result of the climate crisis. In exploring the case of BirthStrike we consider how these decisions were used as a tool for "existential" activism and how the campaign was encounter…
Bloody Marvels: In Situ Seed Saving and Intergenerational Malleability
This article presents ethnographic research with in situ seed savers and seed activists in London. Unpicking the knotty relations between kinship, place, and generation among seed savers and their seeds, this article focuses on how the intrinsic and extrinsic get woven through generations and how thesituor environment of an entity is (and is not) recognized in its identity and multispecies kin relations. I argue that thinking about seeds and the …
Situated Kinmaking and the Population “Problem
Contemporary concern about climate change has been accompanied by a resurgence in questions about what part human numbers play in environmental degradation and species loss. What does population mean, and how is this concept being put to use at a moment when the urgency of climate change seems to elevate the appeal to/of numbers? What role has and should kinship play in understanding “population”? Through a discussion of three recent books—Adele …
Moral laboratories
Now She's Just an Ordinary Baby: The Birth of IVF in the British Press
The birth of Louise Brown, the first baby born through in vitro fertilisation (IVF), in England in 1978 attracted worldwide media attention. This article examines how the contemporary British news media framed this momentous event. Drawing on the example of the Daily Mail's coverage, it focuses on the way in which the British press depicted Louise's parents' emotions, marital relationship and social class in a context of political and economic cr…
The men who made the breakthrough’: How the British press represented Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards in 1978
This article examines how the British press represented Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards in the story of the birth of the first 'test-tube baby', Louise Brown. In 1978, the British press represented the birth of Louise Brown as both a success and a source of hope. The main pairs of protagonists in this story were Steptoe and Edwards and Lesley and John Brown, who metonymically represented British science and infertile couples, respectively. In …
A Nine-Month Head-Start: The Maternal Bond and Surrogacy
This article analyses how interviewees drew on the 'natural' concept of the maternal bond to make nuanced and contingent claims about motherhood and the ethics of surrogacy. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Scotland with people who do not have personal experience of surrogacy, it describes how they used this 'natural' concept to make claims about the ethics of surrogacy and compares these claims with their personal experiences of maternal bondi…
Introduction: Nature and Ethics Across Geographical, Rhetorical and Human Borders
The nature-culture dichotomy is perhaps one of the most critical legacies of anthropological thought. Nature has long occupied a position of vital importance in the way in which people are understo
Making a Good Life: An Ethnography of Nature, Ethics, and Reproduction
This book takes a timely look at the ideas and values that inform how people think about reproduction and assisted reproductive technologies. In an era of heightened scrutiny about parenting and reproduction, fears about environmental degradation, and the rise of the biotechnology industry, the book delves into the reproductive ethics of those who do not have a personal stake in assisted reproductive technologies, but who are building lives inspi…
Making a Good Life: An Ethnography of Nature, Ethics, and Reproduction
What’s Out There
What gets left behind for future generations? Reproduction and the environment in Spey Bay, Scotland
Based on fieldwork with people involved in the environmental movement in Scotland, this article describes the connections they made between the future of reproduction and the future of the environment. While we are used to thinking of Euro-American kinship in terms of the passing on of biogenetic substances, in this case an ecological ethic of reproduction, which places the emphasis on considering the kinds of environments into which children wil…
The Surrogate Body and the Body Politic
Situated Kinmaking and the Population “Problem
Contemporary concern about climate change has been accompanied by a resurgence in questions about what part human numbers play in environmental degradation and species loss. What does population mean, and how is this concept being put to use at a moment when the urgency of climate change seems to elevate the appeal to/of numbers? What role has and should kinship play in understanding “population”? Through a discussion of three recent books—Adele …
What gets left behind for future generations? Reproduction and the environment in Spey Bay, Scotland
Based on fieldwork with people involved in the environmental movement in Scotland, this article describes the connections they made between the future of reproduction and the future of the environment. While we are used to thinking of Euro-American kinship in terms of the passing on of biogenetic substances, in this case an ecological ethic of reproduction, which places the emphasis on considering the kinds of environments into which children wil…
A Nine-Month Head-Start: The Maternal Bond and Surrogacy
This article analyses how interviewees drew on the 'natural' concept of the maternal bond to make nuanced and contingent claims about motherhood and the ethics of surrogacy. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Scotland with people who do not have personal experience of surrogacy, it describes how they used this 'natural' concept to make claims about the ethics of surrogacy and compares these claims with their personal experiences of maternal bondi…
Ringing the Existential Alarm: Exploring BirthStrike for Climate
Climate change is altering the horizon of a liveable future and as a result giving rise to a host of anxieties: ecological, demographic, reproductive, and existential. The BirthStrike for Climate collective was a group of people who were reconsidering reproduction as a result of the climate crisis. In exploring the case of BirthStrike we consider how these decisions were used as a tool for "existential" activism and how the campaign was encounter…
Bloody Marvels: In Situ Seed Saving and Intergenerational Malleability
This article presents ethnographic research with in situ seed savers and seed activists in London. Unpicking the knotty relations between kinship, place, and generation among seed savers and their seeds, this article focuses on how the intrinsic and extrinsic get woven through generations and how thesituor environment of an entity is (and is not) recognized in its identity and multispecies kin relations. I argue that thinking about seeds and the …
Now She's Just an Ordinary Baby: The Birth of IVF in the British Press
The birth of Louise Brown, the first baby born through in vitro fertilisation (IVF), in England in 1978 attracted worldwide media attention. This article examines how the contemporary British news media framed this momentous event. Drawing on the example of the Daily Mail's coverage, it focuses on the way in which the British press depicted Louise's parents' emotions, marital relationship and social class in a context of political and economic cr…
The men who made the breakthrough’: How the British press represented Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards in 1978
This article examines how the British press represented Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards in the story of the birth of the first 'test-tube baby', Louise Brown. In 1978, the British press represented the birth of Louise Brown as both a success and a source of hope. The main pairs of protagonists in this story were Steptoe and Edwards and Lesley and John Brown, who metonymically represented British science and infertile couples, respectively. In …
A Crude, Cruel Crisis
This article explores how some people have channeled their feelings about the climate crisis into reconsiderations around having children, centering biological reproduction as an ethical dilemma and political lever during climate collapse. Through analysis of interviews and testimonials and working with Lauren Berlant's concept of cruel optimism, the authors explore the emergence of a form of reproductive resistance and impasse whereby people are…
The Surrogate Body and the Body Politic
Making a Good Life: An Ethnography of Nature, Ethics, and Reproduction
This book takes a timely look at the ideas and values that inform how people think about reproduction and assisted reproductive technologies. In an era of heightened scrutiny about parenting and reproduction, fears about environmental degradation, and the rise of the biotechnology industry, the book delves into the reproductive ethics of those who do not have a personal stake in assisted reproductive technologies, but who are building lives inspi…
Making a Good Life: An Ethnography of Nature, Ethics, and Reproduction
What’s Out There
What gets left behind for future generations? Reproduction and the environment in Spey Bay, Scotland
Based on fieldwork with people involved in the environmental movement in Scotland, this article describes the connections they made between the future of reproduction and the future of the environment. While we are used to thinking of Euro-American kinship in terms of the passing on of biogenetic substances, in this case an ecological ethic of reproduction, which places the emphasis on considering the kinds of environments into which children wil…
The men who made the breakthrough’: How the British press represented Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards in 1978
This article examines how the British press represented Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards in the story of the birth of the first 'test-tube baby', Louise Brown. In 1978, the British press represented the birth of Louise Brown as both a success and a source of hope. The main pairs of protagonists in this story were Steptoe and Edwards and Lesley and John Brown, who metonymically represented British science and infertile couples, respectively. In …
A Nine-Month Head-Start: The Maternal Bond and Surrogacy
This article analyses how interviewees drew on the 'natural' concept of the maternal bond to make nuanced and contingent claims about motherhood and the ethics of surrogacy. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Scotland with people who do not have personal experience of surrogacy, it describes how they used this 'natural' concept to make claims about the ethics of surrogacy and compares these claims with their personal experiences of maternal bondi…
Introduction: Nature and Ethics Across Geographical, Rhetorical and Human Borders
The nature-culture dichotomy is perhaps one of the most critical legacies of anthropological thought. Nature has long occupied a position of vital importance in the way in which people are understo
Now She's Just an Ordinary Baby: The Birth of IVF in the British Press
The birth of Louise Brown, the first baby born through in vitro fertilisation (IVF), in England in 1978 attracted worldwide media attention. This article examines how the contemporary British news media framed this momentous event. Drawing on the example of the Daily Mail's coverage, it focuses on the way in which the British press depicted Louise's parents' emotions, marital relationship and social class in a context of political and economic cr…
Situated Kinmaking and the Population “Problem
Contemporary concern about climate change has been accompanied by a resurgence in questions about what part human numbers play in environmental degradation and species loss. What does population mean, and how is this concept being put to use at a moment when the urgency of climate change seems to elevate the appeal to/of numbers? What role has and should kinship play in understanding “population”? Through a discussion of three recent books—Adele …
Moral laboratories
Bloody Marvels: In Situ Seed Saving and Intergenerational Malleability
This article presents ethnographic research with in situ seed savers and seed activists in London. Unpicking the knotty relations between kinship, place, and generation among seed savers and their seeds, this article focuses on how the intrinsic and extrinsic get woven through generations and how thesituor environment of an entity is (and is not) recognized in its identity and multispecies kin relations. I argue that thinking about seeds and the …
Adjusting the analytical aperture: Propositions for an integrated approach to the social study of reproductive technologies
The ever-expanding availability of reproductive technologies, the continued roll-out of ‘family planning’ and maternity services across low- and middle-income settings and the rapid development of the fertility industry mean that it is more likely than ever that individuals, especially women and gender non-conforming people, will engage with more than one RT at some point in their life. These multiple engagements with RTs will affect users’ expec…
Ringing the Existential Alarm: Exploring BirthStrike for Climate
Climate change is altering the horizon of a liveable future and as a result giving rise to a host of anxieties: ecological, demographic, reproductive, and existential. The BirthStrike for Climate collective was a group of people who were reconsidering reproduction as a result of the climate crisis. In exploring the case of BirthStrike we consider how these decisions were used as a tool for "existential" activism and how the campaign was encounter…
Squished Strawberries: Saving Seeds and Growing Community in a Hostile Environment
This article explores a case study from ethnographic research with seed-savers and seed activists in London. It discusses the experiences and reflections of Babu Roy, a working-class man of Indian and Kenyan heritage and veteran anti-racist activist, on the intimate relations between people and plants and how these relations can grow community amongst marginalised and racialised people in the UK's ‘hostile environment’ towards immigrants (see El-…
A Crude, Cruel Crisis
This article explores how some people have channeled their feelings about the climate crisis into reconsiderations around having children, centering biological reproduction as an ethical dilemma and political lever during climate collapse. Through analysis of interviews and testimonials and working with Lauren Berlant's concept of cruel optimism, the authors explore the emergence of a form of reproductive resistance and impasse whereby people are…
Psychology (8 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Political science (7 works) · Reproductive Health and Technologies (6 works) · History (5 works) · Environmental ethics (4 works) · Geographies of human-animal interactions (4 works) · Geography (4 works) · History (4 works) · Law (4 works)