In Whose Hands

The home pregnancy test is a technology that can be purchased in drug stores, gas stations, and online, and the results are often casually posted to social media. But, as sociologist and attorney Joan Robinson argues, no technology is as simple as it appears. In Whose Hands traces this test from its origin story in a lab to its day-to-day existence in the hands of users, showing that mundane technologies matter, especially when they are used as tools of surveillance and self-surveillance. The book is the result of Robinson’s fourteen-year exploration of the social life of the home pregnancy test, and it describes the breadth and beauty of people’s messy reproductive lives today. Based on archival and legal research as well as interviews with home pregnancy test users, it shows how even those technologies that we use because they're convenient can be tools of shame, surveillance, and control.