Between solidarity and conflict: Tactical biosociality of Turkish egg donors

Abstract

Based on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews conducted with Turkish egg donors at a Northern Cypriot clinic, this article investigates tactical biosociality of cross-border egg donors that allows them to manage social relations and orient themselves in transnational egg donation (including the processes from recruitment to self-management in and beyond the clinic) under legally restrictive and socially stigmatizing conditions. Addressing the social and collective dimensions of tactics and recognizing the fragmented and conflictual forms of biosociality, it aims to shed light on the complex and ambivalent aspects of tactical biosociality in relation to selective disclosure and stigma within the context of transnational egg donation. Tactical biosociality involves possibilities for solidarity and alliances, and also for conflict and competition among egg donors. It is because for young Turkish women, egg donation retains both gendered moral and financial values that must be tactically negotiated while navigating the wider context of heteropatriarchal cultural norms and expectations, precarious economic and social conditions, biomedical profit and biopolitical control.