Section: Staff Profiles

Jennifer Speirs

Name
Dr Jennifer Speirs
Title
Honorary Fellow
Organisation
Social Anthropology, School of Social and Political Science
University of Edinburgh
Address
Edinburgh UK
E-Mail
URL
http://www.san.ed.ac.uk/staff/spiers_jennifer

Jennifer Speirs completed an M.Sc in Social Anthropology in 1999 at Edinburgh University whilst working as a social work counsellor, trainer and manager in Scotland. She gained an M.Sc by Research with Distinction in 2002, and then a PhD in 2008, both at Edinburgh University. Her doctoral thesis ‘Secretly connected? Anonymous semen donation, genetics, and meanings of kinship’ was based on fieldwork in the infertility treatment sector and interviews with semen donors. She has extensive experience of non-governmental and self-help organisations in the UK, Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand in employee and advisory capacities, and has provided consultancy to infertility clinics, the media and government departments on social aspects of infertility treatment services, adoption and donor-assisted conception.

Research Interests

  • Public and professional strategies and interpretations concerning kinship and parenthood
  • The anthropology of bioethics
  • Infertility tourism and discourses about genetic heritage
  • Social Anthropology and social activism
  • Ethnographic methods
  • Gifts, lineage and Gaelic music in the Western Isles

Book reviews (forthcoming)

1) Konrad, M: ‘Nameless Relations: anonymity, Melanesia and Reproductive Gift Exchange between British Ova donors and Recipients’ (for Medical Anthropology Quarterly)

2) Howell, S: ‘The Kinning of Foreigners: Transnational Adoption in a Global Perspective’ (for Ethnos).

Refereed article in process

‘Donor conception and birth certificates’ (working title) with Eric Blyth, Lucy Frith and Caroline Jones.

Publications (selection)

Blyth, E., Crawshaw, M., Haase, J. and Speirs, J. (2001) ‘The implications of adoption for donor offspring following donor assisted conception’, Child and Family Social Work, 6, 4, 295-304.

Blyth, E, and Speirs, J. (2004) ‘Meeting the Rights and Needs of Donor-Conceived People: The Contribution of a Voluntary Contact Register’ Nordisk Socialt Arbeid  24, 4, pp. 318-330.

Lorencová, R. and Speirs, J.(eds.) (2007) Reflection of Man  Praha: FHS UK.

‘Personal semen donors: report of a survey of UK clinics’ provision of donor-assisted conception treatment to patients using own known donors’.

Published on National Gamete Donation Trust’s website April 2007.

http://www.ngdt.co.uk/publications/

‘Sperm donors are curious too’ in The Edge, ESRC research news, Spring 2008

http://www.esrc.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre/Images/edge27_tcm6-26069.pdf

This page was published on 14 November 2008


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