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Placental Surfaces and the Geographies of Bodily Interiors

Author

Listed:
  • Rachel Colls

    (Department of Geography, Durham University, Science Laboratories, Durham DH1 3LE, England)

  • Maria Fannin

    (School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, University Road, Clifton, Bristol BS8 1SS, England)

Abstract

Within geographical research on ‘the body’, a focus on the surfaces of bodies has been useful for considering how body boundaries, most often implied to begin and end at the skin, (de)limit, (de)regulate, and (de)stabilise what we come to know as ‘a body’. Such work draws attention to how meaning is inscribed ‘upon’ such surfaces and on the fluids that move across, within, and through those surfaces: for example blood, breast milk, and excrement. This paper, however, considers the potential for thinking geographically about interior bodily surfaces by engaging with the placenta. The placenta is a temporary organ that forms in a woman's body only during pregnancy and whose purpose is to mediate the flow of substances between a woman's body and the foetus. It is often considered to have two surfaces, the maternal and foetal surface, or to be ‘a’ surface in and of itself. Our intention is to think geographically ‘with’ ‘the placenta’ in order to focus on what interior surfaces can ‘do’ rather than ‘what they mean’. In so doing our contribution is twofold. Firstly, we will focus on the ‘resurfacing’ of the placenta when it moves outside of the body to be placed upon other (bodily) surfaces, taken back inside the body of origin, or put to use in research. This is significant for highlighting the specific mobilities and temporalities of interior bodily surfaces. Secondly, we consider the theoretical and ethical significance of the placenta for geography by engaging with Luce Irigaray's account of the placental relation between mother and foetus understood as a space of mediation or ‘space between two’. In particular we are interested in considering the geographical potential of the sexed specificities of interior body surfaces, or their ‘morpho-logics’, for understandings of relationality, between self and other, and body and world; in short, we work with the placenta as a ‘relational organ’ in order to uncover new and potentially enlivening ethical spaces of exchange.

Suggested Citation

  • Rachel Colls & Maria Fannin, 2013. "Placental Surfaces and the Geographies of Bodily Interiors," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 45(5), pages 1087-1104, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:45:y:2013:i:5:p:1087-1104
    DOI: 10.1068/a44698
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Brown, Nik & Machin, Laura & McLeod, Danae, 2011. "Immunitary bioeconomy: The economisation of life in the international cord blood market," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(7), pages 1115-1122, April.
    2. Kent, Julie, 2008. "The fetal tissue economy: From the abortion clinic to the stem cell laboratory," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 67(11), pages 1747-1756, December.
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    Cited by:

    1. Avril Maddrell & Veronica della Dora, 2013. "Crossing Surfaces in Search of the Holy: Landscape and Liminality in Contemporary Christian Pilgrimage," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 45(5), pages 1105-1126, May.
    2. Jeffries, Jayne M., 2018. "Negotiating acquired spinal conditions: Recovery with/in bodily materiality and fluids," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 211(C), pages 61-69.
    3. Cristina Larrea-Killinger & Araceli Muñoz & Arantza Begueria & Jaume Mascaró-Pons, 2020. "Body Representations of Internal Pollution: The Risk Perception of the Circulation of Environmental Contaminants in Pregnant and Breastfeeding Women in Spain," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(18), pages 1-20, September.
    4. Isla Forsyth & Hayden Lorimer & Peter Merriman & James Robinson, 2013. "Guest Editorial," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 45(5), pages 1013-1020, May.

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