Infertility, ARTs and reproductive travel in/to Africa: the Case of Ghana

Résumé

Infertility, or  involuntary  childlessness, can have drastic  consequences  for  affected women and men worldwide, but has for a long time been fully neglected in reproductive health programs.  Women  - and sometimes men -  try to find a solution for this problem in different ways. Consequences and possible solutions are strongly dependent on the socio-cultural, political, economic and health care context. Increasingly, people also travel to African countries for IVF and related treatments. In today's session, we will examine the social construction of infertility and childlessness and the use of (traveling) assisted reproductive technologies in different contexts in the global south, with  a focus on two African countries where Trudie Gerrits did research (Mozambique and Ghana).

Bio

Trudie Gerrits is Associate Professor in the Anthropology Department at the University of Amsterdam. Since 1993 most of her own research, publications and supervision of several PhD and Masters theses are related with reproduction, and infertility and assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) in particular. She conducted research in this field in Sub-Saharan Africa (Mozambique and Ghana) as well as in the Netherlands.
https://www.cifp.sociology.cam.ac.uk/directory/trudie-gerrits

Merci de contacter jacopo.storari@unil.ch pour recevoir le lien ZOOM.