Inter­na­tion­al sym­po­sium Repro­duc­tive Health in Frag­ile Democ­ra­cies: Bod­ies, Tech­nolo­gies and Futures
June 8–9, 2026
Pauls Stradiņš Med­i­cine His­to­ry Muse­um in Riga, Latvia

The sym­po­sium brings togeth­er schol­ars and prac­ti­tion­ers from the social sci­ences, human­i­ties, and health­care fields to explore repro­duc­tion as a key site for think­ing about democ­ra­cy, inequal­i­ty, and the pol­i­tics of care, par­tic­u­lar­ly in con­texts of frag­ile or shift­ing demo­c­ra­t­ic institutions.

Sub­mis­sion dead­line: March 1, 2026 (11:55 PM CET)
Sub­mis­sion link: https://forms.gle/3KGXDLuTnSmXDfnT8

For­mat: title, affil­i­a­tion, and 200-word abstract
Par­tic­i­pa­tion: free of charge

Keynote speak­ers include Agniesz­ka Koś­ci­ańs­ka (Uni­ver­si­ty of War­saw) and Ani­ka König (Freie Uni­ver­sität Berlin).

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Anna Molas: „Tam­ing Egg Donors: The Egg Dona­tion Repro­duc­tive Mar­ket in Spain” (Book Launch)

17th of June 2026
18.30h CEST online and in per­son in Barcelona

The pre­sen­ta­tion will be fol­lowed by a con­ver­sa­tion with Lau­ra Per­ler (Uni­ver­si­ty of Bern) and Chan­dra Kala Clemente-Martínez (Chair of the Cata­lan Asso­ci­a­tion of Adoptees). Chris New­field, ISRF Direc­tor of Research, will mod­er­ate the Q&A.

Link to reg­is­ter: Book Launch “Tam­ing Egg Donors”

About the book:
Spain has become one of the most promi­nent fer­til­i­ty mar­kets in the world, large­ly fuelled by the avail­abil­i­ty of human eggs. Behind the promise of cut­ting-edge tech­nol­o­gy and par­ent­hood lies a care­ful­ly tai­lored sys­tem to recruit, man­age, and dis­ci­pline egg donors. In this book, Anna Molas explores how young women are incor­po­rat­ed as egg donors into the glob­al repro­duc­tive indus­try. Through in-depth ethno­graph­ic field­work with both donors and clin­i­cians, the book reveals the frag­ile process­es of selec­tion, mon­i­tor­ing, and con­trol that ensure the sup­ply of human eggs. Intro­duc­ing the con­cept of tam­ing, Molas illu­mi­nates the gen­dered, racial­ized, and classed dimen­sions of repro­duc­tive labor. Engag­ing with the polit­i­cal econ­o­my of repro­duc­tion and the future of repro­duc­tive med­i­cine, this book is an essen­tial resource for schol­ars in med­ical anthro­pol­o­gy, Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy Stud­ies, and fem­i­nist studies.

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Reviews:
“This metic­u­lous­ly researched and argued account of how egg donors in Spain are induct­ed into the glob­al repro-mar­ket makes a cru­cial inter­ven­tion into the now exten­sive soci­o­log­i­cal work on repro­duc­tive labour, entre­pre­neurism and strat­i­fi­ca­tion. A bril­liant con­tri­bu­tion to polit­i­cal econ­o­my as well as repro­duc­tive stud­ies, it is also a mas­ter­ful­ly con­duct­ed study with far-reach­ing impli­ca­tions for prac­ti­tion­ers as well as the social sciences.”
Sarah Franklin, Emer­i­tus Pro­fes­sor of Soci­ol­o­gy, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cambridge

“Enter a world of unpre­dictable bod­ies, painful injec­tions and pres­sured extrac­tions. Molas ren­ders the hid­den work and agency of young women egg donors vis­i­ble in this impor­tant ethnog­ra­phy of the posi­tion­al rela­tions between donors and clin­ics in the world’s largest egg dona­tion indus­try in Spain. In this superb book, she the­o­ris­es how par­tic­i­pat­ing in repro­duc­tive pro­vi­sion depends upon, pro­duces and cap­i­tal­izes on vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties and how young women become oppor­tunis­tic entre­pre­neurs of their repro­duc­tive potentials.”
Andrea Whit­tak­er, FASSA, Pro­fes­sor at the School of Social Sci­ences, Monash University

“Anna Molas‘ bril­liant study both con­tributes to our under­stand­ing of a key site in the glob­al sys­tem of egg pro­vi­sion – Spain – and brings a remark­able fresh per­spec­tive to the repro­duc­tive work involved. By focus­ing on the for­ma­tion of col­lab­o­ra­tive and con­test­ed rela­tion­ships between clin­i­cians and egg providers, the book exam­ines the pow­er rela­tion­ships that allow clin­ics to com­bine care with con­trol, and reli­ably dis­en­tan­gle women from their eggs. Draw­ing on the con­cep­tu­al pos­si­bil­i­ties of ‘tam­ing’, Molas gives us new ways to analyse the inti­mate labour at the heart of the fer­til­i­ty industry.”
Cather­ine Wald­by, FASSA, Pro­fes­sor at the Research School of Social Sci­ences, Aus­tralian Nation­al University

“This unique study presents a deeply researched ethnog­ra­phy of Spain’s egg dona­tion econ­o­my. Molas maps out the mar­ket log­ics and dis­ci­pli­nary tech­niques, always gen­dered, racialised, and classed, through which bod­ies are tamed for inclu­sion in bioe­co­nom­ic cir­cuits of val­ori­sa­tion, sur­veil­lance, and extrac­tion. Fore­ground­ing the voic­es of par­tic­i­pants, both donors and clin­i­cians, Molas skil­ful­ly demys­ti­fies the pow­er dynam­ics obscured by reduc­tive dis­cours­es of ‘dona­tion’ or ‘char­i­ty’. This is required read­ing for schol­ars and prac­ti­tion­ers alike.”
Dr Lars Cor­nelis­sen, Aca­d­e­m­ic Edi­tor, Inde­pen­dent Social Research Foun­da­tion, Lon­don, UK

“Tam­ing Egg Donors offers a com­pre­hen­sive account of how women in Spain come to the deci­sion to donate their eggs. By using the con­cept of tam­ing to ana­lyze the expe­ri­ences of egg donors, Molas shows how the labor involved in mak­ing eggs avail­able for the glob­al bio-mar­ket rein­forces exist­ing inequal­i­ties. This is a rich and thought­ful study that makes an impor­tant inter­ven­tion in the schol­ar­ship on repro­duc­tive labor.”
Daisy Deo­mam­po, Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor, Ford­ham University

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Pan­el “Embody­ing the Immea­sur­able: Mate­r­i­al Prospec­tions on Pain, Ill­ness, and Suf­fer­ing in Crisis”
Part of the track “Method­olo­gies Anchored in Design, Pro­to­types, and Mate­r­i­al Cre­ation” at the XVI ESOCITE Con­fer­ence (Aso­ciación Lati­noamer­i­cana de Estu­dios Sociales de Cien­cia y Tecnología)
June 24 to 26, 2026
Bogotá, Colombia 

In times of glob­al crises—pandemics, con­flicts, envi­ron­men­tal disasters—pain, ill­ness, and suf­fer­ing tra­verse bod­ies, sens­es, and mate­ri­al­i­ties. This pan­el invites explo­ration of how the human is con­sti­tut­ed under these extreme con­di­tions and how the (in)material, togeth­er with Futures Design, can offer tools to envi­sion and project pos­si­ble envi­ron­ments and sce­nar­ios that shape the expe­ri­ence of suf­fer­ing (Fry, 2009).
We wel­come sub­mis­sions address­ing these issues from diverse the­o­ries of sub­jec­tiv­i­ty and epis­te­mo­log­i­cal approach­es: embod­ied cog­ni­tion (Varela, Thomp­son & Rosch, 1991); phe­nom­e­no­log­i­cal and med­ical anthro­pol­o­gy approach­es (Rouse, 2009; Klein­man, 1997, 2020; Biehl, 2005); the exis­ten­tial dimen­sion and bod­i­ly vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty (Cos­melli, 2025); as well as the inter­ac­tion between tech­nol­o­gy, mate­ri­al­i­ty, and invis­i­ble worlds, show­ing how envi­ron­ments and objects shape expe­ri­ences that tran­scend the tan­gi­ble (Espíri­to San­to, 2020,2021,2025) and crit­i­cal analy­ses of pow­er rela­tions and ontolo­gies of the human (Povinel­li, 2021).
The STS com­mu­ni­ty is invit­ed to con­tribute papers that cre­ative­ly and rig­or­ous­ly con­nect expe­ri­ences, the­o­ries, and projections—such as applied projects, media-based work, the­o­ret­i­cal papers, and lit­er­a­ture reviews—that con­tribute to crit­i­cal think­ing in Futures Design, inte­grat­ing expe­ri­ences, the­o­ries, and mate­ri­al­i­ties to gen­er­ate new hori­zons in rela­tion to pain, ill­ness, and suffering.

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