Dr Michal Nahman

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Role:

Associate Professor in Social Anthropology

Department staff:

HAS - Health and Social Sciences

Position:Associate Professor in Social Anthropology
Department:HAS - Health and Social Sciences
Telephone:+4411732 81617
Email:Michal.Nahman@uwe.ac.uk

About me

I am a social scientist who has used the theoretical and methodological tools of sociology, anthropology, feminist science studies to examine closely the political, social and cultural dimensions of biomedicine, reproduction as they relate to race/ism, nationalism and globalisation. More recently my work has examined gendered forms of work, and the colonial dimensions of Global Fertility Chains.

My current research projects are:

Nurture Commodified, an investigation into commercial human milk markets, based on fieldwork in Bengaluru, India, with Prof. Susan Newman (Economics, OU) and Dr Sally Dowling (Nursing).

The Mizrachi Food Project is an anthropology of food cultures, memories and un/belonging. It investigates inequalities, identities and diversity among Jews, and specifically looks at the expriences of Jewish people from the Middle East and North Africa who bear Arabic and African cultures and cultural memories.

In 2007 I came to work in Sociology and Criminology at UWE after having been a Lecturer for three years at Lancaster University in Sociology. In 2011 I was appointed Senior Research Fellow at BIOS, at the London School of Economics. In 2016 I became an Affiliate Scholar at the Cambridge Reproductive Sociology Group, where I am part of the £1.4m "Changing Infertilities" Network.

I was recently funded by the Wellcome Trust to examine 'Global Fertility Chains', which is a political economic and socio-anthropological approach to studying "borders" and "colonialism" in contemporary reproductive practices.

My book, Extractions: An Ethnography of Reproductive Tourism (Palgrave, Global Ethics Series, 2013), available in paperback, was an experriment in reflexive ethnography and the first book to examine BOTH Jewish and Palestinian Israeli experiences of IVF and cross border egg donation. That book is also an account of race/racism and borders during the Second Palestinian Intifada.

I have been an invited panelist on BBC Radio 4's Thinking Allowed programme (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05417l9) and my work has informed the Nuffield Foundation's work on donor conception and anonymity.

My funded research on migration and borders has been situated in Spain and I have published several articles on Repro-Migration. This has also led to more activist work as a Trustee of Project MAMA (projectmama.org)

I am a Visual Ethnographer as well, with a documentary film, Atomised Mothers: A Film about Isolation, 'Austerity' and the politics of parenting (www.atomisedmothers.wordpress.com)

I'm happy to supervise doctoral research on topics of reproductive technologies and reproduction, nationalism, race and racism, migration and trafficking. I encourage innovative approaches to social research.

Publications

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