Traders of gametes, brokers of values: Mediating commercial gamete donations in Delhi
Sandra Bärnreuther
Abstract
Scholarly analyses of transactions of biological material are often focused on either the moral economy of exchange or the political economy of production. In this paper, I highlight the ambiguities that characterize commercial gamete donations in daily clinical life in In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) hospitals in Delhi through agents’ practices of valuation. In Delhi’s IVF economy, agents occupy a pivotal role in mediating gamete transactions: not only as traders of biological substances but also as brokers of values. Aligning various regimes of value, they let transactions appear as morally meaningful as well as economically profitable to donors. Agents also make use of polyvalences and frame transactions in distinct lights in negotiations with different participants. It is their mediations and practices of valuation, I argue, that make commercial gamete donations viable and sustain Delhi’s intimate IVF economy.