Transplacental and Molecular Migrations: Methyl Isocyanate Gas and Reproductive Bioeconomies in Bhopal

Abstract

In this article, the feminist and postcolonial frameworks of distributed reproduction and frontstaging a chemical are used to further explore the concept of global fertility chains. In particular, these approaches are used to trace reproductive bioeconomies that are traveling at the molecular and physiological levels and that link the chemical compound methyl isocyanate (MIC) involved in the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy to the recent growth of reproductive technologies and surrogacy services in the very same city of Bhopal. The goal of this paper is to identify and contextualize the vertical and horizontal transmission of MIC-mediated chemical toxicity through different generations of human and nonhuman actors, and to understand how this toxicity connects to reproductive bioeconomies as we continue to map out global fertility chains and give particular importance to matters of place, scale, and biological borders. Distributed reproduction allows us to rethink the scope of reproduction and make legible the colonial infrastructures that support the molecular and physiological transmission of toxicities. Frontstaging the chemical MIC allows us to trace the specific pathways of colonial legacies that have assumed unfettered access to raw materials and biolabor extracted from the soil, plants, animals, and humans in Bhopal. The paper explores the role that the chemical MIC plays as a catalyst for the transplacental migration of biopolitics—thereby contributing to an extended appreciation of global fertility chains at new molecular and physiological scales.