Centre for the Study of Social Systems
School of Social Sciences
CSSS Colloquium
Sinjini Mukherjee
(Rutgers University, New Jersey)
Will be presenting a paper on
Vitality to Venture Capital: A Historical Perspective on Umbilical Cord Blood as Therapeutic Commodity
Date & Time: February 13, 2020 (Thursday), 11.00 am
Venue:CSSS Committee Room (No: 13), SSS-II
Abstract: Until the 20th Century, midwifery, or what is today known as obstetrics, was ambiguous about practices relating to the ‘management’ of the third stage of labour, which commenced once the child was born. Historically, the timing of severing the umbilical cord and delivery of the placenta had generated a vast range of opinions within the medical profession, given the threat of postpartum hemorrhage in women. It was in the 20th Century, however, that these differences were, by and large, set aside, leading to the concretization of present day practice, where the cord is clamped as soon as the child is born, as opposed to waiting until the placenta is expelled. In the current context of umbilical cord blood (UCB) banking, the moment of severing the cord is of grave significance as it has a direct bearing on how much blood remains for storage.UCB, containing stem and immune system cells, has been projected to be a key and rapidly growing component of what is termed as ‘regenerative medicine’. The medical reimagining of futures in terms of ‘genetic risk’, further propelled by private biotechnology enterprises, has created ‘an obligation to act in the present in relation to the potential futures that now come into view’ (Rose 2007). This paper focuses on the longue duree history of practices around the severing of the umbilical cord and its culmination into active management’ of the third stage of labour, so as to mark the transition of UCB from a maternal substance used to ‘restore strength and vigor to feeble children’ (Velpeua 1852) to its contemporary avatar as therapeutic commodity.
Bio: Dr. Sinjini Mukherjee is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Rutgers Centre for Historical Analysis at Rutgers University. She did her PhD in Anthropology from the University of Heidelberg and was the recipient of a German Research Foundation (DFG) Grant for her doctoral work. Her research addresses the relationship between local moral cosmologies, medical technologies, and perceptions of the human body. While her doctoral thesis was on living donor kidney transplants in India, she is presently working on how Obstetrics negotiates the paradox of umbilical cord blood as a bankable and speculative therapeutic commodity, and as an immediate life enhancing and lifesaving substance during the third stage of labour.
