“Beseeching for Babies” (qiuzi): Metaphysics, Medicine, and the Journey of Reproduction in

“Beseeching for Babies” (qiuzi): Metaphysics, Medicine, and the Journey of Reproduction in Contemporary China

Jolene's PhD research examines the practice of beseeching for babies (qiuzi) and its intersections with metaphysical, medical, and biopolitical dimensions of reproduction in contemporary China. Based on multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork in temples, IVF clinics, OBGYN spaces, and online platforms, her dissertation traces how urban women navigate the uncertainties of fertility through both spiritual and medical avenues. It highlights how ling (efficacy/spirit) circulates across these domains, shaping embodied practices, collective beliefs, and intimate hopes.  By analysing these reproductive journeys, Jolene illuminates the complex interplay between agency, cultural norms, and social change in the making of reproductive subjectivities in urban China. Her work brings a phenomenological attention to the embodiment of ritual, showing how women integrate medical technologies into ritual practice and oscillate between human effort and heavenly fate, seeking to reconcile the promises of modern medicine with the intractable silence of the cosmos, and to create channels of communication through which destiny itself might be swayed.