MacKenzie Patterson

As reproductive technologies such as IVF have become commonplace services for consumption in the global marketplace, it is increasingly difficult to envision these technologies as instruments of radical change or systemic disruption. Thus, returning to texts that propose new ways of employing these technologies to create alternative reproductive futures is crucial.

My research interests lie at the dense intersection of reproduction, race, and technology as I use science fiction to examine the limits of dominant techno-imaginaries and the possibilities for feminist retooling. How are shifting formations of race and gender constructed by and articulated through emerging technologies, specifically, the technologies we refer to as reproductive? How has the science fiction genre, particularly, shaped our imaginaries of these technologies and formations? Most importantly, how can feminist SF works facilitate thinking otherwise—thinking outside of or counter to the systems that underlie racial capitalism that often conflate production and reproduction?