Informed, Hopeful, Hesitant: A virtual ethnography of the participation of women with reproductive difficulties in an Argentine egg donation forum

  • Lucía Ariza Instituto de Investigaciones Gino Germani, UBA
Keywords: Infertility, Online Forums, Virtual Female Profiles, Egg donation, Argentina

Abstract

The article presents preliminary findings from analysis of an online forum on egg donation hosted by one of Argentina’s most well-known maternity websites, Planeta Mamá. It explores prevalent themes and ways of using the forum, showing the emergence of three characteristic female online profiles that are routinely enacted online: the information-leaned, the hopeful, and the doubtful woman. Analysis of these online profiles enables questioning the extent to which information sharing can truly become, in the context of online activity, a form of empowerment; in addition it points to the need of further considering the online forum as space where a specific type of peer pressure takes place. The nature/culture dichotomy is also analysed as part of these repertoires, specifically in its capacity to emphasise the “construed” character of kinship. Through these analyses, the article makes a contribution towards an empirical specification of Rose and Novas’s (2005) notion of “digital bio-citizenship”.

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Published
2017-09-26
How to Cite
Ariza, L. (2017). Informed, Hopeful, Hesitant: A virtual ethnography of the participation of women with reproductive difficulties in an Argentine egg donation forum. Cuadernos De antropología Social, (45). https://doi.org/10.34096/cas.i45.2179
Section
Espacio Abierto - Artículos Originales