Reproductive decision-making in egg and embryo donation in Sweden
Main Supervisor: Ulrika Dahl
Co-upervisor: Evangelia Elenis
What is your educational background?
I have a MA in Gender Studies; MSc in Global Health
Why did you apply to WOMHER's interdisciplinary graduate school?
Since my undergraduate education, I have had a broad interest in sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) as well as issues of bioethics in relation to equality and health outcomes. In particular, I am interested in how cultural notions of gender, the body and reproduction affect practices and treatments in medicine, and how qualitative methods can be used to strengthen health sciences. For me, it was an obvious choice to apply for the WOMHER research school since I want to contribute to increased interdisciplinarity in studies of gender, reproduction and health.
Tell us more about your research project?
For my PhD project I examine decision-making power in assisted reproduction with donated eggs and embryos. In the analysis, I depart from the notion of bio-politics and the field of critical kinship studies to analyse how queer assisted reproduction can be understood in relation to fertility medicine. The research project is interdisciplinary and combines several different methods, such as participant observation, interviews and policy analysis, focusing on a contemporary Swedish setting.
What do you hope the impact of this project to be?
I hope to be contribute to an increased understanding of how political decisions, medical practices and cultural assumptions regarding kinship and gender affect each other, and how possibilities for reproductive decision-making and self-determination affect the living conditions and health of families and individuals.
Other information, references and links
The research project is placed at the Centre for Gender Research, Uppsala University. It is affiliated with the Forte-funded project ”Scandinavian Border Crossings: Race and Nation in Queer Assisted Reproduction”: https://gender.uu.se/news/news/a-new-research-project-at-the-centre
Since March 2022, I am also one of the book review editors at the Nordic LGBTQ+ and Queer Research journal lambda nordica. You can reach them at bookreviews@lambdanordica.com.
