Today, it often seems as though Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ARTs) have reached a stage of normalization, at least in some countries and among certain social groups. Apparently some practices – for example in vitro fertilization (IVF) – have become standard worldwide. The contributors to Assisted Reproduction Across Borders argue against normalization as an uncontested overall trend. This volume reflects on the state of the art of ARTs. From feminist perspectives, the contributors focus on contemporary political debates triggered by ARTs. They examine the varying ways in which ARTs are interpreted and practised in different contexts, depending on religious, moral and political approaches. Assisted Reproduction Across Borders embeds feminist analysis of ARTs across a wide variety of countries and cultural contexts, discussing controversial practices such as surrogacy from the perspective of the global South as well as the global North as well as inequalities in terms of access to IVF. This volume will appeal to scholars and students of anthropology, ethnography, philosophy, political science, history, sociology, film studies, media studies, literature, art history, area studies, and interdisciplinary areas such as gender studies, cultural studies, and postcolonial studies.

Historically organised at a local or national scale, the fields of medicine and healthcare are being radically transformed by new communication, transport and biotechnologies creating, in the process, a genuinely globalised sphere of biomedical production and consumption. This emerging market is characterised by the circulation of bodily materials (tissues, organs and bio-information), patients and expertise across what traditionally have been relatively secure ontological and geographical borders. Crossing both disciplinary and geographical boundaries, this volume draws together a number of important contributions from acknowledged leaders in three respective fields: the trade in bodily commodities, biomedical tourism and migration of health care professionals. It explores and maps out the key characteristics of this emerging, although as yet poorly researched global trade, questioning how, where and why bodies cross borders, whether this exacerbates existing health inequalities and how these circulations impact on healthcare services. Considered together, the chapters in this volume invite comparisons of the ways in which body parts, patients and medical professionals cross national borders, elucidating common themes, concerns and issues. Contributors also pose important questions about the ethical and legal implications of the circulation of bodies across borders and evaluate current and future strategies for regulation.

The Routledge Handbook of Anthropology and Reproduction is a comprehensive overview of the topics, approaches, and trajectories in the anthropological study of human reproduction. The book brings together work from across the discipline of anthropology, with contributions by established and emerging scholars in archaeological, biological, linguistic, and sociocultural anthropology. Across these areas of research, consideration is given to the contexts, conditions, and contingencies that mark and shape the experiences of reproduction as always gendered, classed, and racialized. Over 39 chapters, a diverse range of international scholars cover topics including: Reproductive governance, stratification, justice, and freedom. Fertility and infertility. Technologies and imaginations. Queering reproduction. Pregnancy, childbirth, and reproductive loss. Postpartum and infant care. Care, kinship, and alloparenting. This is a valuable reference for scholars and upper-level students in anthropology and related disciplines associated with reproduction, including sociology, gender studies, science and technology studies, human development and family studies, global health, public health, medicine, medical humanities, and midwifery and nursing.

This edited volume explores the interconnection between care work, travel, and healthcare, emphasizing the emotional dimensions of seeking care away from home. It brings together contributions from disciplines such as anthropology, nursing, primary care, sociology and geography and covers experiences of medical travel and other forms of remote care in the United States, Laos, India, Italy, France, Finland, Switzerland, and Russia.

Zooming in on commercial surrogacy in Russia and Ukraine, Intimate Strangers addresses market expansion into the intimate spheres of life that play out on women's bodies as mothers and workers. Veronika Siegl follows the inner workings of a surrogacy market marked by secrecy, distrust, and anonymous business relationships. She explores intended mothers' anxious struggles for a child in light of stigmatized infertility and the aggressive biopolitics of motherhood; the uncertain but pragmatic pathways in and out of fertility clinics as surrogates navigate harsh economic realities and resist being objectified or morally judged; and the powerful role of agents and doctors who have found a profitable niche in nurturing and facilitating other people's existential hopes. Intimate Strangers discusses these issues against the backdrop of ultra-conservatism and moral governance in Russia, the rising international popularity of the Ukrainian surrogacy market, and the pervasiveness of neo-liberal ideologies and individualized notions of reproductive freedom.

The transnational industry surrounding assisted reproductive technology and regenerative medicine is based on the unacknowledged labour of gamete providers, surrogates and research subjects, and benefits from low labour costs in ‘enabling’ sectors such as logistics and transport. This finding calls for a comprehensive analysis of how the contemporary intersection of neoliberal capitalism and the life sciences - in short, the bioeconomy - capitalises on the body and its (re)productive capacities. The Reproductive Body at Work uptakes this challenge as it explores the relations between value production, labour and the body in one particular realm of the global bioeconomy: the South African bioeconomy of ‘egg donation’. It highlights different forms and dimensions of unacknowledged or precarious human labour that are constitutive for the procurement, brokering and circulation of oocytes as valuable resources. The analysis illustrates that the respective organisation of value and labour renegotiate what ‘the’ (re)productive body can do, which status and roles it is ascribed, which cultural and economic values it signifies and how it is experienced and enacted within a matrix of intersectional power relations. A theoretically profound contribution to the interdisciplinary debate on ‘New materialism’, The Reproductive Body at Work will appeal to students and researchers interested in fields such as gender studies, medical anthropology, cultural studies, sociology, political economy and science and technology studies.

Technologies of Sexuality, Identity and Sexual Health highlights the complex ways in which sexuality is expressed and enacted through local ideologies, global identities and material cultures, and their influence on people’s sexual health and well-being. Its impetus is the renewed interest in technology and the ‘social life of things,’ including pharmaceuticals, expanded sexual and related surgery, the growing exploitation of markets for sexual and contraceptive products, and the impact of these on sexual and health practices and outcomes. Organised loosely into three parts, the opening chapters concentrate on female contraception, its availability, and the varied cultural significance attached to the ability to control its use, exploring the politics of reproductive health and birth control, and the ties between technology and power. The middle section turns its attention to men, and the impact of traditional and contemporary concerns about masculinity, and the social and sexual roles of men. The final chapters look at the commonalities across cultural borders and sexual gendered identities – how products and procedures travel, not only through the formal channels of globalisation, but also informally, carried by individuals across cultural and social boundaries through sexual, social and commercial interactions. The volume brings together anthropologists, sociologists and cultural studies scholars, both senior and emerging, from around the globe. Offering an important and topical contribution to the developing global literature on sexuality, sexual identity, culture and health, it is of interest to researchers and advanced students in these areas.

During the last two decades, a new form of trade in commercial surrogacy grew across Asia. Starting in India, a “disruptive” model of surrogacy offered mass availability, rapid accessibility, and created new demands for surrogacy services from people who could not afford or access surrogacy elsewhere. In International Surrogacy as Disruptive Industry in Southeast Asia, Andrea Whittaker traces the development of this industry and its movement across Southeast Asia following a sequence of governmental bans in India, Nepal, Thailand, and Cambodia. Through a case study of the industry in Thailand, the book offers a nuanced and sympathetic examination of the industry from the perspectives of the people involved in it: surrogates, intended parents, and facilitators. The industry offers intended parents the opportunity to form much desired families, but also creates vulnerabilities for all people involved. These vulnerabilities became evident in cases of trafficking, exploitation, and criminality that emerged in southeast Asia, leading to greater scrutiny on the industry as a whole. Yet the trade continues in new flexible hybrid forms, involving the circulation of reproductive gametes, embryos, surrogates, and ova donors across international borders to circumvent regulations. The book demonstrates the need for new forms of regulation to protect those involved in international surrogacy arrangements.

- UPDATED! Thoroughly revised and expanded coverage of top-of-mind ethical and legal topics concerning vulnerable populations; Indigenous (Joyce Echaquan Inquiry), refugees, and LGBTQ2 persons; advancing technologies and telemedicine; evolving scopes of practice of various categories of nurses; Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD); and much more. - NEW! Coverage of Indigenous legal and ethical perspectives and ways of knowing and understanding related to health, health care, and decision making. - NEW! Up-to-date information on legal and ethical challenges in the time of SARS-CoV-2. - NEW! Case studies for the Next-Generation NCLEX® on the companion Evolve website.

A common basis for the project on which this volume is based is that one cannot understand religion and ethics without paying attention to the different contexts in, and by means of which, these cultural elements are expressed. This approach makes both religion and ethics liquid, and allows us to see them as based on specific contingencies rather than as expressions of some essential features. The changing societal and cultural conditions in late modern Western societies pose new challenges for established religion, theology and ethics: Not only does religion itself appear to be in some kind of crisis, but also many of the established ways of understanding and doing religion, theology and ethics appear obsolete, inadequate or dated. Against such a backdrop, the articles in the present volume represent attempts to rethink theology and religion with regard to these late modern conditions. The volume is the result of a joint undertaking of two research groups, one based in Åbo, Finland, and the other in Oslo, Norway, which have since 2006 focused on exploring the contextual character of theology in understanding both Christian belief and Christian ethics. The challenge of the idea that Christianity appears in new ways – and in “new” contexts, and of investigating what that means, is pursued in various ways.