Global Fluids

Charlotte Kroløkke is a Professor in the Department for the Study of Culture at the University of Southern Denmark, with special responsibilities in cultural analyses of reproductive medicine. She has headed several interdisciplinary research projects on assisted reproduction and the fertility industry, and has published widely within the field of feminist communication and cultural analyses of reproduction.

“Overall, Kroløkke offers a comprehensive analysis of the global trade in reproductive material and how it fuels the hopes (and commodification) of procreation...Global Fluids is well-organized, researched, and argued and is a valuable contribution to the literature of fertility, gender, organ and tissues donation, critical race and ethnicity, science and technology, and political economy studies.” • Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute“Overall, Kroløkke offers a comprehensive analysis of the global trade in reproductive material and how it fuels the hopes (and commodification) of procreation. Global Fluids is well-organized, researched, and argued and is a valuable contribution to the literature of fertility, gender, organ and tissues donation, critical race and ethnicity, science and technology, and political economy studies. It will also speak to activists and advocates of reproductive autonomy and anyone who is interested in understanding the processes in which female reproductive bodies can be disassociated from the individuals who they belong to.” • Anthropos“This book represents a timely, insightful, and valuable contribution to reproductive studies. It offers a good example of how to do interdisciplinary, comparative work that critically engages with both the contexts and the consequences of the global fertility industry, which is a booming and influential part of the contemporary economy that medical anthropologists would be unwise to ignore. Global Fluids provides a sophisticated understanding of how class, gender, race, and sexuality intersect in the global flows of reproductive substances…The work presented in this book would not only provide a useful and enlightening teaching tool, it could also help guide further research into other reproductive substances as various as breastmilk, culture media, and stem cells.” • Medical Anthropology Quarterly“I found this book approachable and clearly written, with the cases Kroløkke presents from her ethnographic research adding illustrative context to her theoretical approaches… While clearly not a history, parts of Global Fluids could be used in a history of reproduction course or one on the history of the body as a way to encourage students to think about historical change and continuity regarding bodies and their products.” • Social History of Medicine“This is sophisticated scholarship that offers original insights into notions of waste and value and their insertion into bio-industries. It is a highly readable, stimulating synthesis of current feminist cultural analysis.” • Andrea Whittaker, Monash University

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgementsIntroductionChapter 1. Scholarly ConversationChapter 2. Urine. From Waste to Hormone ShotsChapter 3. Oocytes: From Waste to AssetsChapter 4. Placentas: From Waste to RegenerationConclusionBibliographyIndex