Other mothers: framing the cybernetic construction(s) of the postmodern family

This study conducts a critical cultural analysis of the assisted reproductive technologies (ART) market and selected consumption that takes place within that context. Specifically, it assumes the view of markets as cultures and conceptualizes the consumption strategies of “other mothers,” the unintended consumers of such body technologies, within the larger cultural context of what it means to be a family. The view of “markets as cultures” is employed to frame the ART marketplace and to address the multiple, local realities that emerge in the consumption process. The hyperreality of the ART marketplace emerges as a fluid and dynamic force that fosters the reversal of production and consumption through the creation of new forms of consumption. In this local context, marginalized ART consumers reappropriate body technologies to construct postmodern families of their own design. A conceptual framework of this cybernetic market culture is presented and discussed with implications for future research regarding bioethics, methodological approaches, family consumption, and new frontiers in postmodern consumption.