Geographies of assisted reproduction: The Spanish egg donation economy as a global/intimate contact zone

Abstract

This article starts from the idea that a fertility clinic is a “contact zone” where differently positioned subjects meet. Broader power relations become tangible in this specific geography of assisted reproduction. This article examines different scales, such as the fertility clinic itself, the national context of reproductive politics in Spain, and the transnational connections of contemporary clinic consortia. By doing so, we reveal the interrelationships that shape this contact zone from the intimate to the global. This interscalar analysis leads to a critique of a transnational fertility industry that is heavily inflicted with logics of productivity and capital accumulation and in which the lives of egg receivers are valued over the lives of egg donors.