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- Convenors:
-
Agnieszka Balcerzak
(LMU Munich)
Alexandra Desy (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
Silvia De Zordo (University of Barcelona)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Stream:
- Mobilities
- Location:
- MR302, MacRobert
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 3 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract
Reproductive mobility – whether for abortion, surrogacy, or ARTs – raises key questions about cross-border care. This panel explores how legal, medical, and cultural contexts impact reproductive experiences, and how mobility, activism, and support networks challenge dominant reproductive narratives.
Long Abstract
In the 21st century, reproduction is increasingly shaped by globalization, migration, conflicts, and mobility. As individuals move across borders for reproductive healthcare, they encounter different legal, medical, and cultural landscapes, such as in Europe, the Americas, or Asia, where accessibility, legality, and mobility intersect with state control, identity, and power. This mobility reveals disparities in care access and shows how transnational politics and societal norms influence the flow of people, medications, and knowledge. This panel aims to “unwrite” dominant narratives by examining reproductive mobility's fluidity through geographical, cultural, and (non-)normative lenses.
We welcome submissions that address, but are not limited to, the following questions: How does reproductive mobility redefine borders, legal frameworks, and the right to autonomy? What role do activist movements play in advocating for reproductive rights across different legal and cultural contexts, and how do they confront stigmatization? How do support networks, from grassroots organizations to digital communities, aid individuals navigating cross-border reproductive journeys? How do such movements shape the lives of those seeking reproductive justice, and what alternative narratives do they create around reproduction, kinship, and body politics? What historical and contemporary examples illustrate the transformation of reproductive norms due to (im)mobility across time and space?
We invite papers from diverse disciplinary backgrounds, including anthropology, sociology, cultural and gender studies, medical humanities, and legal studies. We encourage theoretical, empirical, and case-study-based approaches, focusing on interdisciplinary and transnational perspectives. Papers may explore how reproductive (im)mobility shapes movements and redefines borders and legal frameworks.
Accepted papers
Session 1 Tuesday 3 June, 2025, -Short abstract
Based on 69 in-depth interviews conducted in France in 2022, we examine how digital tools reshape experiences and influence decision-making in CBRC journeys. Our research highlights both the empowering aspects and potential vulnerabilities created by easy access to global fertility market information.
Long abstract
This communication is based on 69 in-depth interviews conducted in 2022 as part of the qualitative component of the Outside-ART survey, leaded at the National Institute for Demographic Studies (Ined, Paris). It explores the role of digital practices in cross-border reproductive care. The study examines how digital tools reshape the experiences of individuals seeking reproductive care abroad. It investigates the significance of digital resources in both the construction of parenthood and cross-border care journeys.
Firstly, our research highlights the role of digital practices during the development of parental projects and the implementation of ART treatments in cross-border care trajectories.
It then focuses on how these digital practices are integral to the globalized fertility market. The study reveals that easy access to information about international care options has dual effects. On one hand, it empowers individuals to make more active choices in their fertility journey. On the other hand, it increases vulnerability for those willing to sacrifice everything to achieve their parental goals.
This research contributes to understand how digital technologies are fully participating to cross-border reproductive care, offering both opportunities and challenges for individuals navigating this complex landscape.
Short abstract
In Switzerland, married lesbian couples gained access to fertility clinics in 2022. Yet, some couples still prefer to travel abroad due to ART restrictions and discriminations. Drawing on interviews with lesbian couples who accessed ART abroad, we examine their cross-border healthcare trajectories.
Long abstract
On 1 July 2022, marriage became legal for same-sex couples in Switzerland, allowing married lesbian couples to benefit from ART and the recognition of co-maternity from birth. Before that, lesbian couples had to resort to reproductive travel to access ART abroad, in conjunction with healthcare in Switzerland before and after insemination. However, despite the legal change, some technologies such as egg donation (reception of oocytes from partner) remain forbidden, even for married couples. In addition, in Switzerland, the donor is selected by physicians at fertility clinics, with the aim of matching the parents' phenotype, rather than by the parents themselves. Finally, childbirth and parenting culture in Switzerland remain strongly heteronormative and healthcare providers are ill-prepared to welcome lesbian couples, including in fertility clinics. In consequence, some couples seeking ART may still prefer to travel abroad
Based on medical fieldworks in Switzerland and in-depth interviews with Swiss lesbian couples who accessed ART abroad, this paper examines their experiences with reproductive travels. How did they choose the country and clinic for their insemination? How did they select their donor? We also analyse how ART regulations and the recent legal changes for lesbians’ reproduction in Switzerland shape intended mothers’ choices and paths to parenthood, intersecting with socio-economic norms and medical disparities in access to treatments.
Short abstract
ARTs have received little scholarly attention in Africa, especially in the Maghreb. Based on our book "Voyager pour procréer au Maghreb. Expériences au sein d’une nouvelle industrie médicale", we present the results of the research program ‘Cross Border Reproductive Care in the Maghreb Region’.
Long abstract
In 2017, the French President Emmanuel Macron used the terms ‘African demographic bomb’ for establishing a direct link between poverty levels and over fertility in Africa. In line with persisting neo-Malthusian logics, his discourse perpetuates erroneous representations of fertility, stigmatizing African women, and ignoring the consequences of slavery, colonialism, and infertility.
Infertility is still invisible in Africa, and ARTs have received little scholarly attention, especially in the Maghreb. Based on our book 'Voyager pour procréer au Maghreb. Expériences au sein d’une nouvelle industrie médicale', we present the results of the research ‘Cross Border Reproductive Care in the Maghreb Region’.
We discuss the ‘cumulative invisibilization’ of infertility in (North) Africa at different scales and the need to decolonize the knowledge produced in the Global North on this topic; the necessity to decentralize the gaze of international academic and health institutions when looking at this region; and the importance of destigmatizing the use of IVF in Africa. Our book shows how reproductive mobilities in the Maghreb, and more largely within francophone Africa, are the result of a complex interplay of relations of domination in which neo-colonial discourses, gendered social norms and socio-economic disparities intertwine. We also examine the emergence of the IVF industry in Tunisia, which has turned the country in a new ‘reprohub’ in francophone Africa. Finally, we analyze African infertile women’s agency and how the quest for a child is intrinsically linked to the quest for respectability. We argue that infertility and cross border reproductive care shall not be depoliticized.
Short abstract
Based on ethnographic research conducted in France and China, this paper offers a comparative analysis of the status of the surrogate from the perspective of intended parents in these two national contexts.
Long abstract
Many people experiencing infertility ultimately opt for the pursuit of surrogacy, thereby externalizing part of the reproductive process, beyond borders and beyond norms. The role and position of the woman carrying the child for others in surrogacy practices can vary significantly depending on the context. She may be perceived as a complete stranger, a benevolent individual offering assistance, or even as a maternal figure.
The significance attached to pregnancy and childbirth in the formation of motherhood differs across various societies. The semantic uncertainties faced by intended parents when defining this woman reflect both the importance of her act for them and its local meaning. Furthermore, the surrogate enables the intended parents to repair a rift in their lives caused by the impossibility of becoming parents. This practice requires a significant investment of time, spanning several months, and places considerable demands on her physical and mental well-being.
Based on ethnographic research conducted in France and China, this paper offers a comparative analysis of the status of the surrogate from the perspective of intended parents in these two national contexts.
Short abstract
In this paper, we examine abortion stigmatisation in Malta and demonstrate how activists and people having abortions have been “unwriting” the dominant discourse of abortion as a stigmatising behaviour in the context of the cross-border circulation of pills and people seeking abortion care abroad.
Long abstract
In this paper we investigate different kinds of mobilities – of people and pills – related to abortion seeking in Malta, where abortion is significantly legally restricted. Based on interviews with pro-abortion rights activists and Maltese people who had an abortion in the last three decades, and on our participation in pro-choice events, we illustrate how women and pregnant people overcome the legal and logistical barriers to accessing abortion in different historical and political moments. Women either travel to countries with legal abortion, or have a self-managed abortion through the help of abortion rights organisations, which provide them with information, support, and abortion pills. In this paper, we focus our analysis particularly on the issue of secrecy and abortion stigmatisation and demonstrate how activists and people having abortions in Malta have been “unwriting” and challenging the dominant discourse of abortion as a stigmatising behaviour. People having abortions may not consider abortion a crime or a sin, but often fear stigmatisation and legal prosecution and therefore tend to keep their abortion secret, which is difficult, because they have to travel abroad, or depend on pills shipped from other countries. Contrasting their forced silence, pro-choice organisations and the researchers collaborating with them hold public events, promote self-managed medication abortion, which allow people to have safe abortions without traveling abroad, and publish the anonymized stories of Maltese people having abortions. They thus contribute to “re-write” the history of abortion and destigmatize it in Malta, while fighting for women’s and pregnant people’s autonomy.