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 Ph.D. 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 the export-oriented egg banks and IVF clinics in Ukraine, donor eggs as racialized 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, 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., & Pavone, V. (2025) Regulation and Altruism as Valuation Mechanisms: A Political Economy of Ova Markets in Ukraine and Spain. Science, Technology, & Human Values. https://doi.org/10.1177/01622439251336630
Vlasenko, P. (2024). Worker-Mothers Between Legitimation and Discipline: Ambiguities in Egg Donation and Surrogacy in Ukraine. Medical Anthropology, 43(8), 714–733. https://doi.org/10.1080/01459740.2024.2439965
Vlasenko, P. (2023). Uncertain Commodities: Egg Banking and Value in Ukraine. BioSocieties https://doi.org/10.1057/s41292-023-00307-w
