phd thesis

Title: Fertility on Ice: Medicine for Demographic Anxieties? Modern Reproductive Technology of Egg Freezing and Reimagined Traditions in Japan

PhD Supervisor: Aditya Bharadwaj

Expected completion date: 2025

Sachiyo’s doctoral research looks at egg freezing, an emerging form of assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs), that allows women to postpone motherhood by freezing and preserving their oocytes. Whereas the technology has been marketed as offering women more reproductive choices, some countries have started to consider egg freezing as a tool to tackle low fertility. By conducting ethnographic research in Japan, she explores how egg freezing is accepted, contested, and mobilized in the contemporary context of demographic anxieties, what motivates women to pursue egg freezing, and how cultural values of motherhood and reproduction are constantly challenged and reimagined in engaging with the technology. 

research interests

• Biomedicine
• Reproductive Politics
• Gender and Technology
• Kinship Studies
• Demographic Anxieties
• Tradition and Modernity

ACADEMIC  EXPERIENCES

Teaching Assistant, Interdisciplinary Masters, The Graduate Institute (2021-22)

FELLOWSHIPS, GRANTS AND AWARds

Swiss National Science Foundation (2023-25)