Life in transit: the work of hyper-mobile gamete couriers in vital mobility infrastructures

Abstract

Reproductive couriers are critical actors within ‘vital mobility infrastructures’ essential to the movement of ‘precious’ gametes that makes assisted reproduction across different places and times possible. Reasons for transporting gametes are varied and range from movements between clinics when patients change clinics through to complex choreographies internationally to bring sperm, oocytes or embryos together for third party assisted reproduction such as in surrogacy. We draw upon interviews with 15 hyper-mobile couriers and courier company managers as well as gamete donor coordinators. Our aim in this paper is to examine the largely invisible ‘mobile work’ undertaken by couriers in shipping gametes and embryos across the world. We examine the dimensions of these vital mobility infrastructures—technologies; companies; regulations; and social dispositions of courier work as part of the complex supply chains of assisted reproductive cycles. External factors and circumstances such as the war in Ukraine or the COVID pandemic may cause disruptions in supply chains which prevent the movement and transfer of the biomaterials. We extend the concept of vital mobilities by drawing attention to the critical infrastructures they depend upon.