Biography
Polina Vlasenko is a postdoctoral researcher in social and cultural anthropology. She has training in political philosophy, gender studies, science and technology studies, and anthropology. She received her PhD degree in medical anthropology from Indiana University, Bloomington. Her dissertation, "Global Circuits of Fertility: The Political Economy of the Ukrainian Ova Market", explored the functioning of export-oriented egg banks and IVF clinics in Ukraine, donor eggs as racialised commodities, and egg donors' experiences of work and motherhood under post-socialism.
Research interests: women's reproductive intimacies and labours; the political economy of assisted reproduction; biocapitalism; the social implications of emerging biotechnologies; markets in bodily substances; postsocialist transformations of gender, health, and biotechnologies in Ukraine.
View Polina's Academia profile.
Recent Publications
Vlasenko, P. (2026) Mediating reproductive labor: affective migration infrastructures and Central Asian surrogates in Georgia. Mobilities, 1–23.
Vlasenko, P., & Pavone, V. (2025) Regulation and Altruism as Valuation Mechanisms: A Political Economy of Ova Markets in Ukraine and Spain. Science, Technology, & Human Values.
Vlasenko, P. (2024) Worker-Mothers Between Legitimation and Discipline: Ambiguities in Egg Donation and Surrogacy in Ukraine. Medical Anthropology, 43(8), 714–733.
Vlasenko, P. (2023) Uncertain Commodities: Egg Banking and Value in Ukraine. BioSocieties.
