Spectral Connections: Anthropological Engagements with Posthumous Reproduction

Abstract

This paper examines the phenomenon of posthumous kinship. In 1951, E.E. Evans-Pritchard introduced us to the possibility that a ghost could be defined as the legal father or mother of a child. Since the time of his writing, this once seemingly ‘exotic’ cultural practice has been brought ‘home’ to Western audiences through the clinical practice of harvesting gametes of recently (or soon to be) deceased individuals for reproductive purposes. Through an examination of several cases in which the dead have been made to ‘father’ or ‘mother’ a child, this paper explores the social and political ramifications of posthumous kinship including what it reveals about shifting Euro-American understandings concerning biological properties (and property), subjectivity, embodiment and the contested boundary between life and death.