Do ‘in vitro children’ exist? The ‘ontological choreography’ between public debates and private experiences in Poland

ABSTRACT

Children who were born used IVF in Poland are subject of vivid discussion nowadays. In this article, we probe the ontology of the in vitro child: do in vitro children exist? If so, how and where? We analyse how an ‘IVF child’ is constructed through public discourses and private narratives. We explore media publications, as well as doctors’ and parents’ narratives concerning IVF children. A very strong voice in the debate has Catholic Church, which opposes medically assisted reproduction. Our main interest in this text are the answers of children and adults born using in vitro. Even young children recognize some focal points from the debate over assisted reproduction and refer to them. Their narratives show that they feel interpellated into existence by various discourses. In this manner, we argue, being an ‘in vitro child’ in Poland is a political status, not a biological one.     

First results of metallographic analysis and absolute dating of iron finds from Nowe Brzesko,site 26, Proszowice District

This paper presents the results of analyses of metal artefacts discovered at a multiphase site in Nowe Brzesko, Małopolskie Voivodeship, Poland. Fieldwalking prospection led to the discovery of steely iron objects, ploughed out on the site among other numerous archeological finds. A prospecting sondage yielded more corroded metal artefacts, identified mainly as agricultural tools (e.g. sickles, scythes). These chronologically nondistinctive artefacts could be assigned to the third to fourth century AD using radiocarbon dating, complemented by metallurgical analysis. The results open up new research perspectives on the economy and society of the Przeworsk culture in the Late Roman period.     

Automated classification of starch granules using supervised pattern recognition of morphological properties

Image analysis techniques have been used to investigate the likelihood of being able to classify and assign a probability regarding the plant origin of individual starch granules in a collection of granules. Quantifiable variables were used to characterize the granules, and the assignments and probabilities were calculated objectively. We consider the classification of images containing granules of a single species and of mixed species and the possibility of assigning a class to granules of unknown species in an image of a slide obtained from the dental calculus of chimpanzees.     

Small Product,Big Issues: Value Contestations and Cultural Identities in Cross-border Commodity Networks

This article follows the trajectory of maize husks from their production sites in rural Western Mexico to diverse consumption and commercialization locales both within the country and in the United States, showing how the uses and meanings of specific products are continuously reassembled and transformed within the livelihoods and social networks of Mexicans living in a transnational world. By highlighting the multiplicities and ambiguities of social value and cultural identities implicit in the workings of commodity chains and globalization processes, the study leads to a questioning of commodity-chain analysis. It also challenges theories of cultural production and circulation based on a unified and hierarchical system of value.