Biography
Sigrid Vertommen is working as a research associate at Reprosoc, in the Department of Sociology of Cambridge University. She is coordinating a work package on the political economy of in/fertility in the Wellcome Trust funded project on Changing in/Fertilties, directed by Sarah Franklin and Marcia Inhorn.
Previously, Sigrid worked as a Marie Curie fellow at the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at King's College London where she conducted qualitative research on the political economy of global fertility chains, with an empirical focus on the fertility chain between Israel/Palestine and Georgia. She is particularly interested in understanding women's role and participation in the reproductive bio-economy as egg vendors and surrogates through the lens of reproductive labour. This research builds further on Sigrid's PhD research on the political economy of assisted reproduction in Israel/Palestine, in which she addressed the multiple ways in which reproductive technologies, including IVF, Pergonal, child removals, sperm smuggling, egg donation and transnational surrogacy, have been imagined, materialised and coproduced in Israel/Palestine, at the crossroads of settler colonialism, biocapitalism and bio/necropolitics.
Her work has been published in journals including BioSocieties, New Genetics and Society and Science as Culture, and edited volumes such as 'Mattering: Feminism, Science and Materialism' edited by Victoria Pitts-Taylor, 'Assisted reproduction in a European and globalized perspective: notes on the overall framework' edited by Nina Lykke and Merete Lie, 'Critical Kinship studies: Kinship (trans)formed' edited by Charlotte Kroløkke e.a.
She is also active in the Slow Science Movement in Belgium and in the Women's Strike Assemby in London.
Publications
Forthcoming
Vertommen, Sigrid. “De paradox van reproductieve arbeid: tussen onderdrukking en verzet”. In: F-Boek: Feminisme van nu in woord en beeld. Ed. Meulenbelt, Anja, Sarah Bracke, e.a. Spectrum Pers.
Vertommen, Sigrid and Camille Barbagallo. “The invisible wombs of the market: waged and unwaged reproductive labour in the global surrogacy industry”. Review of Political Economy. Special Issue on Contemporary Feminist Political Economies of Work. Guest Editors: Alessandra Mezzadri, Susan Newman and Sara Stevano (under review).
Vertommen, Sigrid, Vincenzo Pavone and Michal Nahman. “Global fertility chains: An integrative political economy approach to understand the reproductive bio-economy”. Science, Technology and Human Values (under review.
Vertommen, Sigrid. Fertility Frontiers: A feminist political economy of assisted reproduction in Israel/Palestine. London: Pluto Press (book proposal under review)
2018
Vertommen, Sigrid and Reyns, Ailien. 2018. “Draagmoeder Georgië en de babybusiness boom”. Mo* Magazine. Mo Papers December 2018, pp. 1-12.
Merleau-Ponty Noémie, Vertommen Sigrid and Pucéat Michel. “I6 Passages: On the Circulation of a Human Embryonic Stem Cell Line from Israel to France”. New Genetics and Society. doi:10.1080/14636778.2018.1548269
Vertommen, Sigrid. 2018. “Réproduction sociale et le féminisme des 99%: entretien avec Tithi Bhattacharya” (Social reproduction and feminism for the 99%: an interview with Tithi Bhattacharya). Lava Magazine 1(5), Juli 2018.
2017
Vertommen Sigrid and Camille Barbagallo. “Baas over eigen buik? Betaalde en onbetaalde arbeid op de reproductieve markt”(Dutch)or “Les ventres invisibles du marché”(The invisible wombs of the market). Lava Magazine 1(1): pp. 1-8.
Koen Bogaert,Valerie De Craene, Anton Froeyman, Karen Stroobants and Sigrid Vertommen. The Academic Manifesto: The Situation in Flanders, pp. 54-57. In: “International Responses to the Academic Manifesto: Reports from 14 Countries. Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective Special report, p. 1-77.
Vertommen Sigrid. “From the Pergonal Project to Kadimastem: A genealogy of Israel’s reproductive-industrial complex”. BioSocieties 12(2): pp. 282-306.
Vertommen Sigrid. "Babies from behind the bars: stratified assisted reproduction in Israel/Palestine”. In " Assisted Reproduction in Movement Standardization and Renegotiation". Eds. Merete Lie and Nina Lykke, Routledge. pp. 207-218.
Vertommen, Sigrid. State of the //ART//of the state: a political economy of assisted reproduction in Israel. Unpublished dissertation. Ghent University. Faculty of Political Sciences.
2016
Vertommen Sigrid. “Female bodily (re)productivity in the stem cell economy: a cross materialist feminist approach”. in Mattering: Feminism, Science and Materialism. Ed. Victoria Pitts-Taylor, NYU Press. pp. 204-223
Vertommen Sigrid. "Towards a Political economy of egg donations: doing it the Israel way". In: Critical Kinship Studies: Kinship (Trans)formed', Eds. By Kroløkke, Adrian, Myong and Tjørnhøj-Thomsen. Rowman and Littlefield International. pp: 169-184.
2015
Vertommen Sigrid. Assisted Reproductive Technologies at the Frontier: Towards a Decolonial Approach. Science as Culture 24(4): pp. 532-537.
Vertommen Sigrid, “Extractions: An Ethnography of Reproductive Tourism”, New Genetics and Society, March: pp. 1-3.
2013
Vertommen Sigrid. “Help de onderdrukkers worden onderdrukt: sociaal protest in Israël” (Help, the oppressors are being oppressed: social protest in Israel). in: Midden-Oosten: Times are a-changing. Ed. Sami Zemni. EPO, 2013.
Vertommen Sigrid and Jabary-Salamanca Omar. “Eén zwaluw maakt de Palestijnse lente niet” (One swallow does not make summer in Palestine). in: Midden-Oosten: Times are a-changing. Ed. Sami Zemni. EPO, 2013.
2010
Zemni Sami and Vertommen Sigrid. ”Politiek-filosofische reflecties over de grensvervaging tussen leger en politie” (“Political-philosophical reflections at the intersection of law and politics”). Orde van de Dag: Criminaliteit en Samenleving, pp. 17-24.
2008
Vertommen Sigrid. “Hoe de KPB het feminisme links liet liggen: de emancipatiegraad van de vrouw in de Kommunistische Partij van België, 1921-1991”(How the KPB left aside the feminist struggle: women’s emancipation in the Belgian Communist Party, 1921-1991). Brood en Rozen. pp.27-47.
Vertommen Sigrid. De neoliberale ontwikkelingen in Latijns-Amerika: de neerslag op urbanisering (Neoliberal urban developments in Latin America). in: Conflict en ontwikkeling: overleven in de grensgebieden van de globalisering. Ed. Doom Ruddy. EPO, pp. 65-88.
