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Experimental Futures
Plastic Bodies: Sex Hormones and Menstrual Suppression in Brazil
Duke University Press
Copyright:
This content is made freely available by the publisher. It may not be redistributed or altered. All rights reserved.
ISBN electronic:
978-0-8223-7419-0
Publication date:
2016
Book Chapter
Conclusion: Limits That Do Not Foreclose
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Published:April 2016
Hormonal menstrual suppression, as a chemical means of choosing nature, is a peculiar kind of purification, situated within a Bahian esthetic preference for artificiality. The conclusion engages with anthropological debates on the tension between biological contingency and technological possibility opened up by the incursion of biotechnologies. It explores the prolificity of excess that is unleashed when the scope of intervention is not capped by reference to what is naturally given. Although bodies occupy a prominent place in Brazilian social life, they are not imagined as fixed or immutable. To the contrary. Nature is understood to be plastic. Given this plasticity,...
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