A Majumdar
Biographic Data
| ID | 48603 |
|---|---|
| NAME | A Majumdar |
| GIVEN NAMES | A |
| FAMILY NAME | Majumdar |
| SIGNATURE | MAJUMDAR A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4976-1129 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 31 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Sociology of Gender in India
Sociology of Gender in India brings together feminist and queer scholarship to chart the changing landscape of gender debates in Indian Sociology. Spanning over five decades of disciplinary evolution, this volume interrogates how gender, caste, sexuality, class, and digitalization intersect in shaping contemporary social life. With essays by a new generation of scholars, it critically engages with foundational debates in kinship, marriage, labour…
Legal change and children’s shared decision making experiences in mental health
This study systematically reviewed data regarding children and young peoples experience of shared decision making in mental health services before and after the introduction of the English Health and Social Care Act (2012), which encouraged the practice. Studies collecting relevant data between 2008 and 2022 were systematically searched on four databases in April 2022. Studies were excluded based on the age and location of participants and the ty…
Commercial egg extraction and the discourse on empowerment/exploitation in India
In this article, we analyse Indian mass media reportage and ethnographic research findings from participants in commercial egg extraction procedures within assisted reproductive technologies, including egg donation and egg freezing or oocyte cryopreservation. In contrast to egg freezing, egg donation requires compensation to be paid to the donor for her contribution. The commercial egg extraction industry in India is dependent upon women willing …
The Gestational Age Ceiling and Abortion Litigation in India
Gestational age (GA) ceiling as a concept is used across the world as a legal proscription in abortion access. In this article, we analyze India's Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act Amendment (2021) from the perspective of two recent litigations to engage with how a supposedly liberal GA ceiling may in reality be restrictive to accessing abortion services. Both the cases contest the increased GA ceiling of 24 weeks by seeking a termination past…
Im/mobility and privilege during Covid-19
In this paper I recount my relationship with the ex-surrogate Swapna during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how it comes to define my navigation of my immobility due to the lockdown. Juxtaposed with my immobility is Swapna's forced mobility to stay afloat due to a precarious economic situation. Firmly embedded within 'reprography', or the reworking of the traditional ethnography through the 'undoing' of the 'field', and fieldwork-related mobility this…
Kinship as Fiction
Introduction – Kinship as fiction
This special issue brings together emerging studies on kinship in South Asia and explores the idea of kinship as ‘fiction’ through ethnographic analysis of intimate relationships. Anthropology had long considered kinship as ‘natural’ or ‘biological’, thereby rendering other relations as ‘real’ or ‘fictive’. However, the recent ever-expanding scope of the ‘new kinship studies’, through the mapping of socio-technological changes, including the deve…
Toxic disruptions
Im/mobility in the transnational surrogacy market
Based on in-depth interviews and non-participant observation collected with various actors in four surrogacy markets (India, the U.S. Germany, and Ukraine), in this paper we examine the impact of the COVID-19 global pandemic on the infrastructure of the global surrogacy industry. Our findings detail the fallout of the immobilized assisted reproductive technology (ART) industry and point to the ways various stakeholders have worked to maintain its…
There are two sides to everything”
Vulnerability is a pivotal concept for understanding transnational commercial surrogacy and the ethics of reproductive travel. While implicitly recognizing vulnerability as important, existing scholarship falls short of understanding the dynamism of vulnerability. Placing our empirical analysis in conjunction with the rich theoretical literature on this concept, we explore vulnerability in surrogacy arrangements in India as a “mode of openness,” …
Outliers and Rogue Doctors
In this article I focus on media narratives on older women bearing and birthing infants through the intervention of assisted reproductive technologies (ART) in rural north India. I suggest that their portrayal as "outliers" within popular media narratives is gendered, and connected in particular to: the fear of older women past their reproductive prime becoming pregnant and birthing children through ART; the figure of the "rogue doctor," or the e…
Infertility as inevitable
In seeking to explore the meaning of chronic and chronicity, the association with infertility is neither immediate nor evident. However, this paper explores this relationship by analyzing the idea of infertility in relation to chronicity. In the linkages that come forth the idea of chronic lifestyle emerging from certain ways of being and living, as well the imaginings associated with the chronic body become important nodes of exploring the relat…
Conceptualizing aged reproduction
Introduction. Contending with the Hourglass
.
The birth professionals
In this paper, we define what we understand by birth professionals and examine how they have emerged in India in response to existing obstetric and gynecological practices. The focus here is on the emerging category of the “birth professional,” as we look back into how professional midwifery, doulas, childbirth educators and lactation consultants have come to define “newer” birthing options for women, with the corresponding decline of traditional…
Remembering deceased kin through assisted conception in India
In this paper, I examine the idea of fiction in relation to kinship by analyzing the role that memory plays in assisted reproduction in North India. I specifically engage with the desire to seek the intervention of in-vitro fertilization after the loss of a child, mostly sons, through an accident, prematurely. In the process, the paper engages with the kind of narratives that birthing women remember and speak of in seeking the ‘rebirth’ of their …
Kinship as fiction
This special issue brings together emerging studies on kinship in South Asia and explores the idea of kinship as ‘fiction’ through ethnographic analysis of intimate relationships. Anthropology had long considered kinship as ‘natural’ or ‘biological’, thereby rendering other relations as ‘real’ or ‘fictive’. However, the recent ever-expanding scope of the ‘new kinship studies’, through the mapping of socio-technological changes, including the deve…
Being Human in this Technical World
experience. Since technologies can fail, with the simplest example of a tablet running low in battery on a two-hour flight, pilots need to be prepared to continue their flight without jeopardizing their own and the public safety. In this digital era, pilots need to stay informed of the emerging technologies and be trained accordingly so that new technologies improve their flying experiences without putting public safety at risk
Transnational Commercial Surrogacy and the (Un)Making of Kin in India
Billed as an emerging transnational industry, the commercial surrogacy arrangement is more than mere commerce. It involves the birth of kin and relationships that include cross-cultural dialogues and conflicts between forms of reproduction and birthing. The process of making kin is fraught with different forms of negotiations regarding biology, nurture, pregnancy, and parenthood. This book engages with the idea of emerging forms of families and m…
Conceptualizing Surrogacy as Work-Labour
Using ethnographic findings, this article reflects on Indian women engaged in commercial surrogacy for foreign and Indian couples and expands on the existing ideas of paid and unpaid employment by conceptualizing transnational commercial surrogacy in India. The latter is undertaken through a mapping of the meanings surrogates and intended couples make of their participation in the transnational commercial surrogacy arrangement. Here, ideas about …
In no-man's land
Every year, large numbers of aspiring parents from all over the world come to India to fulfil their dreams of parenthood. They hire an Indian surrogate and with the help of state-of-the-art medical technology, they are able to conceive children they can call their ‘own’. Since 2005, commercial gestational surrogacy in India has become a lucrative industry thanks to the cheap gestational labour, and cheaper medical services. However, this largely …
The Rhetoric of Choice
This article examines three predominant discourses that are part of the analysis of commercial surrogacy: the commodification of “motherhood;” the “romance” of the gift relationship; and the “agency” of the surrogate mother, especially in relation to the feminist and academic analysis of commercial surrogacy in India. Motherhood, agency, and the romance of the gift continue to influence the study and analysis of surrogacy as strong rhetorical ide…
Nurturing an Alien Pregnancy
In India where a large number of Indian women, primarily from poor and disadvantaged economic sections, are willing to gestate a pregnancy for an infertile couple in exchange for compensation—the meaning of pregnancy is completely different. Navigating circumstances and relationships are not only strange for Indian surrogates but also for foreign as well as Indian couples who enter into the transnational commercial gestational surrogacy arrangeme…
Conceptualizing Surrogacy as Work-Labour
Using ethnographic findings, this article reflects on Indian women engaged in commercial surrogacy for foreign and Indian couples and expands on the existing ideas of paid and unpaid employment by conceptualizing transnational commercial surrogacy in India. The latter is undertaken through a mapping of the meanings surrogates and intended couples make of their participation in the transnational commercial surrogacy arrangement. Here, ideas about …
Nurturing an Alien Pregnancy
In India where a large number of Indian women, primarily from poor and disadvantaged economic sections, are willing to gestate a pregnancy for an infertile couple in exchange for compensation—the meaning of pregnancy is completely different. Navigating circumstances and relationships are not only strange for Indian surrogates but also for foreign as well as Indian couples who enter into the transnational commercial gestational surrogacy arrangeme…
The Rhetoric of Choice
This article examines three predominant discourses that are part of the analysis of commercial surrogacy: the commodification of “motherhood;” the “romance” of the gift relationship; and the “agency” of the surrogate mother, especially in relation to the feminist and academic analysis of commercial surrogacy in India. Motherhood, agency, and the romance of the gift continue to influence the study and analysis of surrogacy as strong rhetorical ide…
There are two sides to everything”
Vulnerability is a pivotal concept for understanding transnational commercial surrogacy and the ethics of reproductive travel. While implicitly recognizing vulnerability as important, existing scholarship falls short of understanding the dynamism of vulnerability. Placing our empirical analysis in conjunction with the rich theoretical literature on this concept, we explore vulnerability in surrogacy arrangements in India as a “mode of openness,” …
Im/mobility in the transnational surrogacy market
Based on in-depth interviews and non-participant observation collected with various actors in four surrogacy markets (India, the U.S. Germany, and Ukraine), in this paper we examine the impact of the COVID-19 global pandemic on the infrastructure of the global surrogacy industry. Our findings detail the fallout of the immobilized assisted reproductive technology (ART) industry and point to the ways various stakeholders have worked to maintain its…
Outliers and Rogue Doctors
In this article I focus on media narratives on older women bearing and birthing infants through the intervention of assisted reproductive technologies (ART) in rural north India. I suggest that their portrayal as "outliers" within popular media narratives is gendered, and connected in particular to: the fear of older women past their reproductive prime becoming pregnant and birthing children through ART; the figure of the "rogue doctor," or the e…
Kinship as fiction
This special issue brings together emerging studies on kinship in South Asia and explores the idea of kinship as ‘fiction’ through ethnographic analysis of intimate relationships. Anthropology had long considered kinship as ‘natural’ or ‘biological’, thereby rendering other relations as ‘real’ or ‘fictive’. However, the recent ever-expanding scope of the ‘new kinship studies’, through the mapping of socio-technological changes, including the deve…
In no-man's land
Every year, large numbers of aspiring parents from all over the world come to India to fulfil their dreams of parenthood. They hire an Indian surrogate and with the help of state-of-the-art medical technology, they are able to conceive children they can call their ‘own’. Since 2005, commercial gestational surrogacy in India has become a lucrative industry thanks to the cheap gestational labour, and cheaper medical services. However, this largely …
The Rhetoric of Choice
This article examines three predominant discourses that are part of the analysis of commercial surrogacy: the commodification of “motherhood;” the “romance” of the gift relationship; and the “agency” of the surrogate mother, especially in relation to the feminist and academic analysis of commercial surrogacy in India. Motherhood, agency, and the romance of the gift continue to influence the study and analysis of surrogacy as strong rhetorical ide…
Nurturing an Alien Pregnancy
In India where a large number of Indian women, primarily from poor and disadvantaged economic sections, are willing to gestate a pregnancy for an infertile couple in exchange for compensation—the meaning of pregnancy is completely different. Navigating circumstances and relationships are not only strange for Indian surrogates but also for foreign as well as Indian couples who enter into the transnational commercial gestational surrogacy arrangeme…
In no-man's land
Every year, large numbers of aspiring parents from all over the world come to India to fulfil their dreams of parenthood. They hire an Indian surrogate and with the help of state-of-the-art medical technology, they are able to conceive children they can call their ‘own’. Since 2005, commercial gestational surrogacy in India has become a lucrative industry thanks to the cheap gestational labour, and cheaper medical services. However, this largely …
Transnational Commercial Surrogacy and the (Un)Making of Kin in India
Billed as an emerging transnational industry, the commercial surrogacy arrangement is more than mere commerce. It involves the birth of kin and relationships that include cross-cultural dialogues and conflicts between forms of reproduction and birthing. The process of making kin is fraught with different forms of negotiations regarding biology, nurture, pregnancy, and parenthood. This book engages with the idea of emerging forms of families and m…
Conceptualizing Surrogacy as Work-Labour
Using ethnographic findings, this article reflects on Indian women engaged in commercial surrogacy for foreign and Indian couples and expands on the existing ideas of paid and unpaid employment by conceptualizing transnational commercial surrogacy in India. The latter is undertaken through a mapping of the meanings surrogates and intended couples make of their participation in the transnational commercial surrogacy arrangement. Here, ideas about …
Being Human in this Technical World
experience. Since technologies can fail, with the simplest example of a tablet running low in battery on a two-hour flight, pilots need to be prepared to continue their flight without jeopardizing their own and the public safety. In this digital era, pilots need to stay informed of the emerging technologies and be trained accordingly so that new technologies improve their flying experiences without putting public safety at risk
Infertility as inevitable
In seeking to explore the meaning of chronic and chronicity, the association with infertility is neither immediate nor evident. However, this paper explores this relationship by analyzing the idea of infertility in relation to chronicity. In the linkages that come forth the idea of chronic lifestyle emerging from certain ways of being and living, as well the imaginings associated with the chronic body become important nodes of exploring the relat…
Conceptualizing aged reproduction
Introduction. Contending with the Hourglass
.
The birth professionals
In this paper, we define what we understand by birth professionals and examine how they have emerged in India in response to existing obstetric and gynecological practices. The focus here is on the emerging category of the “birth professional,” as we look back into how professional midwifery, doulas, childbirth educators and lactation consultants have come to define “newer” birthing options for women, with the corresponding decline of traditional…
Remembering deceased kin through assisted conception in India
In this paper, I examine the idea of fiction in relation to kinship by analyzing the role that memory plays in assisted reproduction in North India. I specifically engage with the desire to seek the intervention of in-vitro fertilization after the loss of a child, mostly sons, through an accident, prematurely. In the process, the paper engages with the kind of narratives that birthing women remember and speak of in seeking the ‘rebirth’ of their …
Kinship as fiction
This special issue brings together emerging studies on kinship in South Asia and explores the idea of kinship as ‘fiction’ through ethnographic analysis of intimate relationships. Anthropology had long considered kinship as ‘natural’ or ‘biological’, thereby rendering other relations as ‘real’ or ‘fictive’. However, the recent ever-expanding scope of the ‘new kinship studies’, through the mapping of socio-technological changes, including the deve…
Outliers and Rogue Doctors
In this article I focus on media narratives on older women bearing and birthing infants through the intervention of assisted reproductive technologies (ART) in rural north India. I suggest that their portrayal as "outliers" within popular media narratives is gendered, and connected in particular to: the fear of older women past their reproductive prime becoming pregnant and birthing children through ART; the figure of the "rogue doctor," or the e…
Im/mobility in the transnational surrogacy market
Based on in-depth interviews and non-participant observation collected with various actors in four surrogacy markets (India, the U.S. Germany, and Ukraine), in this paper we examine the impact of the COVID-19 global pandemic on the infrastructure of the global surrogacy industry. Our findings detail the fallout of the immobilized assisted reproductive technology (ART) industry and point to the ways various stakeholders have worked to maintain its…
There are two sides to everything”
Vulnerability is a pivotal concept for understanding transnational commercial surrogacy and the ethics of reproductive travel. While implicitly recognizing vulnerability as important, existing scholarship falls short of understanding the dynamism of vulnerability. Placing our empirical analysis in conjunction with the rich theoretical literature on this concept, we explore vulnerability in surrogacy arrangements in India as a “mode of openness,” …
Kinship as Fiction
Introduction – Kinship as fiction
This special issue brings together emerging studies on kinship in South Asia and explores the idea of kinship as ‘fiction’ through ethnographic analysis of intimate relationships. Anthropology had long considered kinship as ‘natural’ or ‘biological’, thereby rendering other relations as ‘real’ or ‘fictive’. However, the recent ever-expanding scope of the ‘new kinship studies’, through the mapping of socio-technological changes, including the deve…
Toxic disruptions
Im/mobility and privilege during Covid-19
In this paper I recount my relationship with the ex-surrogate Swapna during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how it comes to define my navigation of my immobility due to the lockdown. Juxtaposed with my immobility is Swapna's forced mobility to stay afloat due to a precarious economic situation. Firmly embedded within 'reprography', or the reworking of the traditional ethnography through the 'undoing' of the 'field', and fieldwork-related mobility this…
Sociology of Gender in India
Sociology of Gender in India brings together feminist and queer scholarship to chart the changing landscape of gender debates in Indian Sociology. Spanning over five decades of disciplinary evolution, this volume interrogates how gender, caste, sexuality, class, and digitalization intersect in shaping contemporary social life. With essays by a new generation of scholars, it critically engages with foundational debates in kinship, marriage, labour…
Legal change and children’s shared decision making experiences in mental health
This study systematically reviewed data regarding children and young peoples experience of shared decision making in mental health services before and after the introduction of the English Health and Social Care Act (2012), which encouraged the practice. Studies collecting relevant data between 2008 and 2022 were systematically searched on four databases in April 2022. Studies were excluded based on the age and location of participants and the ty…
Commercial egg extraction and the discourse on empowerment/exploitation in India
In this article, we analyse Indian mass media reportage and ethnographic research findings from participants in commercial egg extraction procedures within assisted reproductive technologies, including egg donation and egg freezing or oocyte cryopreservation. In contrast to egg freezing, egg donation requires compensation to be paid to the donor for her contribution. The commercial egg extraction industry in India is dependent upon women willing …
The Gestational Age Ceiling and Abortion Litigation in India
Gestational age (GA) ceiling as a concept is used across the world as a legal proscription in abortion access. In this article, we analyze India's Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act Amendment (2021) from the perspective of two recent litigations to engage with how a supposedly liberal GA ceiling may in reality be restrictive to accessing abortion services. Both the cases contest the increased GA ceiling of 24 weeks by seeking a termination past…
Demographic Trends and Gender Preferences (16 works) · Sociology (15 works) · Reproductive Health and Technologies (13 works) · Anthropology (9 works) · Gender Studies (9 works) · Biology (8 works) · Ethnography (8 works) · Gender Studies (7 works) · Reproduction (7 works) · Kinship (6 works)