Exposed Biologies

Abstract

Smog-choked cities, cancer villages, and contaminated food have become iconic problems of a modernizing China—the tragic, perhaps unavoidable, side effects of a voracious economy. Chapter 3 examines how the sperm bank—jingziku—in China has emerged quite literally as a sanctuary of vitality amid concerns around food safety, air and water pollution, rising infertility, and declining population quality. As a twist on Margaret Lock’s concept of “local biologies,” the chapter argues that exposed biologies have become a matter of concern in China in ways that have corroborated a place for high-tech sperm banks within China’s restrictive reproductive complex. Exposed biologies are a side effect of modernization processes, as industrially manufactured chemicals are increasingly held culpable for a range of pathologies, from cancers andmetabolic diseases to disorders of sex development and infertility.