title: Searching for Love and Test-Tube Babies: Iraqi Refugee Men in Reproductive Exile on the Margins of Detroit.
abstract: In this article, I explore the reproductive health problems faced by Iraqi refugees, one of America's most rapidly growing immigrant populations. Based on anthropological research in "Arab Detroit," the "capital" of Arab America, I explore the experiences of Iraqi refugee men seeking medical help for their infertility. Most required intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), a variant of in vitro fertilization (IVF). However, in America's privatized medical system-where a single cycle can cost more than $12,000-few could possibly afford this assisted reproductive technology (ART). Although Iraqi refugees had diasporic dreams of making a test-tube baby, they were stuck in a situation of "reproductive exile"-forced out of their home country by war, but unable to access costly ARTs in the country that led to their displacement. I elaborate on the concept of reproductive exile, attempting to translate Iraqi refugee men's reproductive agency and desires, but also their profound disappointments.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Anthropology , Yale University , New Haven , Connecticut , USA.
authors.forename: Marcia C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Inhorn
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D060432:Anthropology, Medical; D018912:Arabs / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D007248:Infertility, Male / Q000208:ethnology / Q000523:psychology; D007493:Iraq / Q000208:ethnology; D008297:Male; D008571:Men / Q000523:psychology; D008824:Michigan; D012036:Refugees / Q000523:psychology*; D027724:Reproductive Techniques, Assisted / Q000191:economics / Q000523:psychology
keywords: Detroit; Iraqi refugees; assisted reproductive technologies; male infertility; reproductive exile; structural vulnerability