Searching for Love and Test-Tube Babies: Iraqi Refugee Men in Reproductive Exile on the Margins of Detroit |
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Authors: | Marcia C Inhorn |
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Institution: | 1. Department of Anthropology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USAmarcia.inhorn@yale.edu |
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Abstract: | ABSTRACTIn this article, I explore the reproductive health problems faced by Iraqi refugees, one of America’s most rapidly growing immigrant populations. Based on anthropological research in “Arab Detroit,” the “capital” of Arab America, I explore the experiences of Iraqi refugee men seeking medical help for their infertility. Most required intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), a variant of in vitro fertilization (IVF). However, in America’s privatized medical system—where a single cycle can cost more than $12,000—few could possibly afford this assisted reproductive technology (ART). Although Iraqi refugees had diasporic dreams of making a test-tube baby, they were stuck in a situation of “reproductive exile”—forced out of their home country by war, but unable to access costly ARTs in the country that led to their displacement. I elaborate on the concept of reproductive exile, attempting to translate Iraqi refugee men’s reproductive agency and desires, but also their profound disappointments. |
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Keywords: | Detroit Iraqi refugees assisted reproductive technologies male infertility reproductive exile structural vulnerability |
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