Abstract
Based on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews conducted with Turkish egg donors at a Northern Cypriot clinic, this article investigates tactical biosociality of cross-border egg donors that allows them to manage social relations and orient themselves in transnational egg donation (including the processes from recruitment to self-management in and beyond the clinic) under legally restrictive and socially stigmatizing conditions. Addressing the social and collective dimensions of tactics and recognizing the fragmented and conflictual forms of biosociality, it aims to shed light on the complex and ambivalent aspects of tactical biosociality in relation to selective disclosure and stigma within the context of transnational egg donation. Tactical biosociality involves possibilities for solidarity and alliances, and also for conflict and competition among egg donors. It is because for young Turkish women, egg donation retains both gendered moral and financial values that must be tactically negotiated while navigating the wider context of heteropatriarchal cultural norms and expectations, precarious economic and social conditions, biomedical profit and biopolitical control.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
All names are pseudonyms.
The legal regulation of assisted reproduction in Northern Cyprus goes back to the 2002 bylaw, which has been amended three times (in 2006, 2009 and 2016 respectively) since its enactment.
Fieldwork research was funded by the National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant (STS) (# 1456130). The research was conducted for my dissertation I completed in 2019 in the doctoral program in HASTS at MIT.
According to the 2006 Northern Cypriot IVF regulation, egg donors were allowed to donate only once a year and their age was required to be not less than 20 and not more than 32. The 2009 regulation, however, did not include any information regarding egg donors. The 2016 regulation allows egg donors to donate three times per year at most and their age should be between 20 and 35. There are also other requirements for egg donors such as body mass index; physical, psychological and genetic health; having two healthy ovaries; XX- chromosomal sex.
During interviews, the egg donors mentioned some numbers without referring to any unit of measurement for the amount of hormonal drugs. Apparently they became familiar with the hormonal drugs and how to use them throughout the process, but without no need to know what these numbers actually refer to.
References
Acar, Feride, and Gülbanu. Altunok 2013 The ‘Politics of Intimate’ at the Intersection of Neo-Liberalism and Neo-Conservatism in Contemporary Turkey. Women’s Studies International Forum 41:14–23
Bärnreuther, Sandra 2020 Traders of Gametes, Brokers of Values: Mediating Commercial Gamete Donations in Delhi. Economy and Society 49(3): 455–473
Becker, Gay, Anneliese Butler, and Robert D. Nachtigall 2005 Resemblance Talk: A Challenge for Parents whose Children were Conceived with Donor Gametes in the US. Social Science and Medicine 61: 1300–1309
Bergmann, Sven 2012 Resemblance that Matters: On Transnational Anonymized Egg Donation in Two European IVF Clinics. In Reproductive Technologies as Global Form: Ethnographies of Knowledge, Practices, and Transnational Encounters Michi Knecht, Maren Klotz, and Stefan Beck, eds., Frankfurt: Campus Verlagp.
Bharadwaj, Aditya 2003 Why Adoption is Not An Option in India: The Visibility of Infertility, The Secrecy of Donor Insemination, and Other Cultural Complexities. Social Science and Medicine 56(9): 1867–1880
Birenbaum-Carmeli, Daphna, Yoram S. Carmeli, and Haim Yavetz 2000 Secrecy Among Israeli Recipients of Donor Insemination. Politics and the Life Sciences 19(1): 69–76
Cohen, Lawrence 2005 Operability, Bioavailability, and Exception. In Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics, and Ethics as Anthropological Problems A. Ong, and S.J. Collier, eds., Malden, Oxford: Blackwell.
Franklin, Sarah. 2013. Biological Relatives: IVF, Stem Cells, and the Future of Kinship. Duke University Press.
Freeman, Tabitha, Sophie Zadeh, Vanessa Smith, and Susan Golombok 2016 Disclosure of Sperm Donation: A Comparison Between Solo Mother and Two-Parent Families with Identifiable Donors. Reproductive Biomedicine Online 33(5): 592–600
Gibbon, Sahra, and Carlos Novas 2008 Introduction: Biosocialities, Genetics and the Social Sciences. In Biosocialities, Genetics and the Social Sciences: Making Biologies and Identities Sahra Gibbon, and Carlos Novas, eds., London: Routledge.
Gilman, Leah, and Petra Nordqvist 2018 Organizing Openness: How UK Policy Defines the Significance of Information and Information Sharing about Gamete Donation. International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family 32(3): 316–333
Guell, Cornelia 2011 Candi(e)d Action: Biosocialities of Turkish Berliners Living with Diabetes. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 25(3): 377–394
Gürtin, Zeynep 2016 Patriarchal Pronatalism: Islam, Secularism and The Conjugal Confines of Turkey’s IVF Boom. Reproductive Biomedicine and Society Online 2: 39–46
Gürtin, Zeynep 2011 Banning Reproductive Travel: Turkey’s ART Legislation and Third-Party Assisted Reproduction. Reproductive BioMedicine Online 23: 555–564
Inhorn, Marcia 2015 Cosmopolitan Conceptions: IVF Sojourns in Global Dubai Durham: Duke University Press
Jones, Graham 2014 Secrecy. Annual Review of Anthropology 43: 53–69
Korkman, Zeynep K. 2015 Blessing Neoliberalism: Economy, Family, and The Occult in Millennial Turkey. Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association 2(2): 335–357
Kroløkke, Charlotte 2015 Have Eggs. Will Travel: The Experiences and Ethics of Global Egg Donation. Somatechnics 5(1): 12–31
Kroløkke, Charlotte 2014 West is Best: Affective Assemblages and Spanish Oocytes. European Journal of Women’s Studies 21(1): 57–71
Kyriakides, Theodoros 2018a Tactics as Ethnographic and Conceptual Objects: Introduction to Special Section. Social Anthropology 26(4): 452–455
Kyriakides, Theodoros 2018b Tactics of Association. Social Anthropology 26(4): 471–486
Lock, Margaret, and Patricia A. Kaufert, eds. 1998 Pragmatic Women and Body Politics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Meleo-Erwin, Zoë C. 2020. “Bariatric Biosociality: Pushed Together, Pulled Apart.” SAGE Open, (January-March):1–14.
Nahman, Michal 2008 Nodes of Desire: Romanian Egg-Sellers, ‘Dignity’ and Feminist Alliances in Transnational Ova Exchanges. European Journal of Women’s Studies 15(2): 65–82
Nahman, Michal 2006 Materialising Israeliness: Difference and Mixture in Transnational Ova Donation. Science as Culture 15(3): 199–213
Navaro-Yashin, Yael 2012 The Make-Believe Space: Affective Geography in a Postwar Polity Durham/London: Duke University Press
Ozyegin, Gul 2015 New Desires, New Selves: Sex, Love, and Piety Among Turkish Youth New York and London: New York University Press
Pande, Amrita 2020 Visa Stamps for Injections: Traveling Biolabor and South African Egg Provision. Gender and Society 34(4): 573–596
Pande, Amrita, and Tessa Moll 2018 Gendered Bio-Responsibilities and Travelling Egg Providers from South Africa. Reproductive Biomedicine & Society Online 6: 23–33
Perler, Laura, and Carolin Schurr 2021 Intimate Lives in the Global Bioeconomy: Reproductive Biographies of Mexican Egg Donors. Body & Society 27(3): 3–27
Roberts, Elizabeth F.S. 2012 God’s Laboratory: Assisted Reproduction in the Andes Berkeley: University of California Press
Rubaii, Kali 2020 Trust Without Confidence: Moving Medicine with Dirty Hands. Cultural Anthropology 35(2): 211–217
Sehlikoglu, Sertac 2015 The Daring Mahrem: Changing Dynamics of Public Sexuality in Turkey. In Gender and Sexuality in Muslim Cultures Gul Ozyegin, ed., London: Routledge.
Taussig, Michael 1999 Defacement: Public Secrecy and The Labor of The Negative Stanford: Stanford University Press
Thompson, Charis 2001 Strategic Naturalizing: Kinship in an infertility Clinic. In Relative Values: Reconfiguring Kinship Studies Sarah Franklin, and Susan McKinnon, eds., Durham/London: Duke University Press.
Tremayne, Soraya 2012 The ‘Down Side’ of Gamete Donation: Challenging ‘Happy Family’ Rhetoric in Iran. In Islam and Assisted Reproductive Technologies: Sunni and Shia Perspectives M.C. Inhorn, and S. Tremayne, eds., New York: Berghahn Books.
Turkmendag, Ilke 2012 Home and Away: the Turkish Ban on Donor Conception. Law, Innovation and Technology 4(2): 144–164
Yükseker, Deniz 2004 Trust and gender in a transnational market: the public culture of Laleli, Istanbul. Public Culture 16(1): 47–65
Zengin, Aslı 2016 Violent Intimacies: Tactile State Power, Sex/Gender Transgression, and the Politics of Touch in Contemporary Turkey. Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 12(2): 225–245
Funding
Funding was provided by National Science Foundation (Grant No. 1456130).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The author declares that she has no conflict of interest.
Ethical Approval
Human subjects protocols for the research were reviewed and approved by MIT’s The Committee on the Use of Humans as Experimental Subjects.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Mutlu, B. Between Solidarity and Conflict: Tactical Biosociality of Turkish Egg Donors. Cult Med Psychiatry 47, 684–700 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11013-022-09798-x
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11013-022-09798-x