Expanding Markets in Life: Exploring emerging ART practices in India and Uganda

This project takes the 2020 Indian Surrogacy Regulation Bill in India as a starting point for exploring how the reproductive industry adapts and relocates to unregulated East African markets, with a particular focus on Uganda. The key aim is to provide new knowledge on emerging gendered forms of labour in a rapidly expanding global bio-economy.

India is now increasingly seen as a “pre-conception assemblage hub”, where embryos are created and implanted into surrogates who carry their pregnancies to term in countries with no protective legislation. This study offers valuable insights into the mechanisms and implications of technological diffusion, not the least in relation to global inequalities and enhanced vulnerabilities. The project has a broad relevance, given the central role of female reproductive tissues and processes in biotechnologies, which drives the expanding global markets in bodies and body parts.

– Understanding the conditions under which women engage in reproductive labour, in this expanding economy, is key for designing legal and policy interventions to protect their rights, says project leader Johanna Gondouin.

---

Principal Investigator: Johanna Gondouin (Linköping University)

Period: 2022–2024

Financing: SEK 4 497 000 from the Swedish Research Council

Johanna Gondouin, Department of Thematic Studies, Linköping University

Suruchi Thapar-Björkert, Department of Government, Uppsala University

Åsa Eriksson, RFSU