UMass Boston

Course Overview

Description

Globalization is drawing increasing numbers of women (and men) into cross-border transactions in which the reproductive and sexual body is the desired object of exchange. These global markets raise important questions about what it means for human dignity when body parts and services are treated as commercially available. Do these transactions commodify women (particularly those from the Global South) by treating them as disposable, fragmentary bodies for the benefit of wealthy customers? Or do they offer new pathways out of poverty, by enabling women to assert control over this productive resource? Using a transnational feminist and human rights lens, this course examines these issues, with a particular focus on sex tourism/trafficking and gestational surrogacy. The course also looks at a very different type of cross-border travel - namely, the flight of persons in conflict zones for the purpose of escaping political violence rather than to seek or sell an intimate service. Specifically, we consider the unique challenges that refugees and internally displaced persons confront when seeking to access reproductive health services, including abortion.