Indian Women’s Reproductive Bodies in the Free Market of a Globalised World
02/10/2007 - 19:30
2 October 2007
19.30 - 21.00 hrs
Lecture by Jyotsna Agnihotri Gupta PhD
Assistant Professor, University for Humanistics, Utrecht. Senior Researcher, International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden University
Women's reproductive bodies and their body parts, such as eggs, embryos and uteruses are entities which have been turned into commodities that are donated or traded, either for use by infertility specialists or research scientists. Centres all over the world, mainly in the US and Europe, but also in India, are dealing in reproductive body parts. This lecture shows how the provision of infertility services, an expanding and lucrative `industry', is related to poverty. Poor women from developing countries and from the underclass in the developed world are reproducing for the world market and for the more privileged classes, as well as providing the raw material for stem-cell research and cloning.
Gupta will discuss how Indian women are also participating as (re)producers in the `outsourcing' taking place in this field, a phenomenon generally associated with economic globalisation in capitalist production. These developments pose new challenges not only for women's rights advocates, but also for health policy makers, legislators and bioethicists.
This lecture is the second in the series 'Asian DNA at the Forefront' organised within the context of the ‘Socio-genetic Marginalisation Programme' (SMAP) at IIAS. For information on this programme, see www.iias.nl/smap.
Venue
Lipsius Building
Cleveringaplaats 1
room 005
Leiden, the Netherlands
For information
Ms Saskia Jans
Fellowship Coordinator
International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS)
T +31-71 527 54 90
iiasfellowships@let.leidenuniv.nl