Conceiving the future and labouring in the present: the 'real' work of IVF in the wake of infertility

This project researches the ways self and personhood are negotiated and experienced by women and families facing infertility, focusing on IVF treatment and other interventions. The project investigates the radical social, moral and embodied impact of infertility on people's anticipated life courses, positioning the future as a fundamental site through which women (re)construct their

identity as mother/non-mother in the present. As Irving suggests (2018:391), it is often the imaginary of a specific future-life that grounds action in the present and provides an interpretive framework for understanding one's current social and existential conditions. By exploring infertile women's imaginings of their future-self as directly implicated in the constitution and contingency of

their self-identity and personhood, this project will provide new insights into how women negotiate, understand and (re)make their ongoing social and moral relations in the wake of biographical disruption and the loss of an imagined future. The outputs of this project aim to provide alternative theoretical and methodological frameworks for making sense of realms of human experience that

extend beyond infertility, including: trauma, illness, and loss.