Veronika Siegl
Veronika Siegl studied social anthropology, international development and gender studies in Vienna, Manchester and Bern. In her dissertation, titled „Fragile Truths. The Ethical Labour of Doing Trans-/national Surrogacy in Russia and Ukraine” (2018), she explored how morals and values are employed to make sense of, judge, legitimise and govern the intimate and affective relations produced in the sphere of commercial surrogacy. The dissertation formed part of the SNSF-funded research project “Intimate Uncertainties" (headed by Prof. Dr. Sabine Strasser). After her doctorate at the University of Bern, Veronika Siegl worked as assistant and lecturer at the Institute of Social Anthropology and the Interdisciplinary Centre for Gender Studies.
Veronika Siegl is interested in questions of ethics, inequality and autonomy in the context of medicine, technology, economy and the body. In her new project "Negotiating un/born ‚life’“ she wants to ethnographically explore how the category of „life“ is negotiated in the context of late abortions.
Title Dissertation
Fragile Truths. The Ethical Labour of Doing Trans-/national Surrogacy in Russia and Ukraine
Research project
Negotiating un/born ‘life’. Time, materiality and late abortions in the age of prenatal testing
Research Foci
Intimate labour/ intimate economies; assisted reproduction | reproductive rights & motherhood; bio-medicine and bio-technologies; feminism & intersectionality; affects & emotions; morality & ethics; migration | (anti-)racism & social movements; qualitative methods & research ethics; regional focus: Eastern Europe (part. Russia & Ukraine)
Publications
Selection:
2019. “There’s a crack in everything”. Or: How Leonard Cohen inspired my research on surrogacy. In: Medicine Anthropology Theory. Online: http://www.medanthrotheory.org/article/view/5371
2019. Leihmutterschaft in der Ukraine. Aufstieg – und Fall? – eines lukrativen internationalen Marktes. In: Ukraine-Analysen 211, 8 – 13. Online: http://www.laender-analysen.de/ukraine/pdf/UkraineAnalysen211.pdf
2018. The Ultimate Argument. Evoking the Affective Powers of ‘Happiness’ in Commercial Surrogacy. In: Anthropological Journal of European Studies 27(2), 1 – 21.
2018. The presence of absence in surrogate homes. In: Allegra Laboratory. Online: http://allegralaboratory.net/the-presence-of-absence-in-surrogate-homes/.
2015. Märkte der guten Hoffnung. Leihmutterschaft, Arbeit und körperliche Kommodifizierung in Russland. In: Prokla. Zeitschrift für kritische Sozialwissenschaft 178, 99 – 115.
2016. Feminismus und Leihmutterschaft. Ein Plädoyer für das Aushalten und Anerkennen von Widersprüchen. In: aep-Informationen. Feministische Zeitschrift für Politik und Gesellschaft 3/2016.
