Enacting Divides: Successful Alliances in Health Activism in Bulgaria

摘要

The paper aims to explore the current state of a particular instance of patient activism in Bulgaria through tracing the sociotechnical network architecture of the assisted reproductive technologies. It argues that in the local context this is the patient activism, which could be assessed as successful or, in ANT's terms, it has forged heterogeneous alliances, able to sustain themselves, proliferate and enroll new protagonists. Based on interviews with patients and activists, on media representations, and online discussions, this research tries to trace the local heterogeneous arrays of protagonists and show how ARTs network successfully stabilizes and gains power.