Samhita Das

This research is a multi-sited ethnographic investigation of the socio-political assemblages of two contrasting reproductive technologies rooted in India’s reproductive landscapes – hysterectomy and uterine transplant surgery. When marginalized women in remote villages in Western India have been grappling with unnecessary hysterectomies, leading to the formation of “Wombless Villages” in India, private hospitals in major Indian cities are inaugurating uterine transplantation programs seeking to commercialize Uterine transplant surgery (UTx). Exploring the implications of hysterectomy in rural India in tandem with UTx programs in urban areas addresses the anthropological question of how following “uterine circulation” can uncover a possibly hidden and yet novel organ economy in India that has the potential to capitalize on the existing caste, class, and gender hierarchies. By taking a Dalit feminist perspective, this research explores invasive medical interventions on the reproductive body in India. A dalit feminist standpoint highlights the particular ways in which medical technologies re-produce casteized and gendered bodies by intervening in the promissory reproductive futures as mediated through UTx.