Making Futures by Freezing Life: Ambivalent Temporalities of Cryopreservation Practices

Abstract

The preservation of biological matter at extremely low temperatures has gained increasing importance in a broad range of life science fields in recent years. Social and cultural studies of cryotechnologies have often likened the freezing of life to a stillstand of time. This special issue explores the argument that cryotechnologies require us to rethink time and temporality more broadly: freezing does not simply equate to an interruption of the “natural” course of time. Covering diverse types of freezing practices and biological materials—egg cells, cord blood, lab mice, and breast milk—the articles in this issue inquire empirically and theoretically into different ways in which cryotechnologies contribute in making particular pasts, presents, and futures. In engaging with cryopreservation, we have to take into account the complex, sometimes contradictory, pathways in which life, death, and time are made and remade through freezing.