Technologies of Kinship Asian American Racialization and the Making of Family

"Technologies of Kinship offers a sharp, compelling exploration of how family structures and racialized dynamics have shaped Asian American communities. LiLi Johnson's incisive analysis reveals how these systems foster and reshape kinship ties, all while exposing the dominance of heteronormative social reproduction. Ambitious in both scope and depth, this book is a must-read for anyone seeking a profound understanding of family, race, and identity." - Thy Phu, University of Toronto

"Johnson's work draws a startingly original link between 20th-century visual and bio technologies and the ways we imagine our relationship to others. Situating family as a site of gender and racial formation through technological forms-photography, bureaucracy, IVF, and gene sequencing-she makes a compelling case for the importance of Asian American Studies and feminist STS. If kinship is, in part, an affective projection, she suggests, racialization enables intimacy as well as ideas about who belongs together. Technologies of Kinship is both a heartening and chilling exploration of the historical ways in which science and technology come to inform human desires." - Leslie Bow, University of Wisconsin-Madison