[Anthropgrad] Pre-Field Seminar by Hang Minh Tran on Friday, 28 Nov 08

[Sin Wen Lau]

Anthropology Friday Seminar Series, Semester 2, 2008
Milgate Room, AD Hope Building
Friday, 28 November 2008, 3pm

'New Reproductive Technologies, New Reproductive Trends: Sex Selective 
Abortion in Contemporary Northern Vietnam'
Pre-Field Seminar by Hang Minh Tran, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of 
Anthropology, RSPAS

Improvements in prenatal diagnosis, in particular the development of 
ultrasound scanning technology, have been linked in some contexts to an 
increase in sex identification before birth and to sex selective 
abortions. Ultrasound is today the most commonly practiced method of sex 
selection in several countries in South and East Asia and preliminary 
studies suggest that it is becoming increasingly prevalent in Vietnam as 
well. There is some evidence that Vietnam’s national sex ratio at birth 
is currently skewed toward a higher-than-expected number of boys, a 
trend occurring in tandem with the increasing availability of ultrasound 
and its promotion as a tool for sex selection. This situation may lead 
to significant societal and demographic changes, having potentially 
adverse implications for women and for society at large.

This anthropological study aims to understand contemporary forms of 
reproductive agency by exploring the experiences of those making use of 
new reproductive technologies to determine the sex of their child. The 
study’s main objectives are: (1) to document and elucidate the use of 
ultrasound scanning for sex selective abortion in Vietnam; (2) to 
describe the motives, circumstances and experiences of those seeking to 
determine the sex of the fetus and to undergo sex selective abortions; 
(3) to examine the social differentiation of “reproductive agents” in 
term of kinship, class, occupational or other factors; and (4) to 
investigate societal responses to the sex selective abortion phenomenon. 
I wish to draw a holistic picture about the motives, methods and 
meanings of sex determination and sex selective abortion practices in 
the Vietnamese context. I hope to bring a case for the complexity, 
diversity, and contradictory nature of the impact of reproductive 
technology on the lives and bodies of women in local settings.

Since the research topic implicates complex economic, social, cultural, 
political, and gender issues, an interdisciplinary approach will guide 
the process of data gathering. Holistic and multilayered ethnography is 
the key element of this research design. The core methods include 
participant observation in public and private obstetrical clinics, the 
development of rapport with individual reproductive agents so as to 
track their life circumstances and experiences, and formal and informal 
interviews with a diverse range of respondents. Surveys, analysis of 
media reports and policy documents, and interviews with regulators and 
health professionals will be used to gauge societal responses to this 
phenomenon.
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Lau Sin Wen
Department of Anthropology
Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies
The Australian National University
Canberra ACT0200
Australia

Telephone : +61-2-6125-3271
Fax	 : +61-2-6125-4896
Email	 : sinwen.lau at anu.edu.au
Website	 : http://rspas.anu.edu.au/anthropology
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