Paper short abstract:

On the basis of ethnographic research conducted in Hanoi, Vietnam, this paper explores how biomedically produced images evoke other images, being interpreted through imaginative engagements with fantasy worlds conjured by powerful mass mediated representations.

Paper long abstract:

On the basis of ethnographic fieldwork carried out in Vietnam's capital Hanoi from 2003 to 2006, I explore how pregnant women and their health care providers interpret 3D scanning images of children-to-be. I focus particularly on images of fetuses that are medically graded as 'abnormal', tracing the meanings that people attach to visual representations of anomalous fetal bodies and examining the complex ways in which perceptions of such sonographic images are mediated by other images: by mass mediated representations of bodies grossly disfigured by 'Agent Orange', the highly toxic herbicide dioxin sprayed by U.S. military during the second Indochina war, and by glossy commercial advertisements for baby and child products aimed at an expanding group of middle class consumers. I show how health care providers and pregnant women act on the medical 'facts' produced by sonographies through imaginative engagements with fantasy worlds conjured by such powerful mass mediated representations, and discuss the implications of such engagements between 'fact' and 'fantasy' for anthropological apprehension of the social impact of new biomedical technologies.