Making Sense of a Loss: Men, Reproductive Emotions, and Religiosities As Affective Technologies?

Iran is among few Muslim countries in which assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs), including the use of donor gametes and embryos, have been partly regulated by the state through the Increasing Population Policies and, more significantly, have been widely legitimised by religious authorities. Although the state partly subsidises ARTs, they are not equally accessible to all. In Iran, infertility—a stigmatised condition— is dominantly considered a ‘woman’s problem’; male infertility is hardly recognised or discussed in families, society, or the social sciences. With my study, I analyse the expressions of loss and lostness found among Iranian men. My ethnographic study yields insights into male infertility and the use of ARTs and how they relate to dominant notions of masculinity and reproductive precarity in the socio-cultural, legal, religious, and medical context of contemporary Iran. Taking an intersectional perspective on gender, class, affect and religion, my research builds on the core theoretical notions such as ‘reproductive loss’, ‘affect’, and ‘emerging masculinities’. For the The 5th ISA Forum of Sociology, I will present a part of my research on men and reproductive emotions and my findings about a part of my empirical material on men’s affective experiences of involuntary childlessness men. Focusing on the panel ‘Science, Health, and Religion: Intersections in the Field of Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART), in my presentation, I will I address the ways in which men adopt various affective notions with religious connotations, such as tavakol [trust in God] as forms of situated meaning-making resources and as part of their local moral imaginaries. For my research, I conducted 14 months of primarily online fieldwork in Iran for my PhD research (2021_2022). My research methods include observations of online platforms used by (in)fertile couples, interviews with men and their partners, and ARTs professionals.