Prof. Dr. phil. Sandra Bärnreuther
CV
Sandra Bärnreuther lehrt und forscht als Assistenzprofessorin (tenure-track) am Ethnologischen Seminar der Universität Luzern. Ihr derzeitiges Forschungsprojekt (SNF) beschäftigt sich mit datengesteuerter Entwicklung in Indien und Kenia. Aus ihrer früheren ethnographischen und historischen Forschung über Reproduktionsmedizin in Indien entstand das Buch “Substantial Relations: Making Global Reproductive Medicine in Postcolonial India” (Cornell University Press).
Nach ihrem Studium an verschiedenen Universitäten in Deutschland, Indien und den USA promovierte Sandra Bärnreuther am Südasieninstitut und Exzellenzcluster “Asia and Europe in a Global Context” der Universität Heidelberg. Sie lehrte in Heidelberg, an der University of Chicago und der Universität Zürich und war Gastwissenschaftlerin an dem Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Advanced Study, der University of Edinburgh, der University of Oxford und dem Max-Planck Institut für ethnologische Forschung. Sie ist ausserdem Mitglied der Jungen Akademie Schweiz.
Forschung
Forschungsschwerpunkte
Thematische Interessen
- Medizinethnologie
- Politikethnologie
- Ethnologie des Digitalen
- Entwicklungsethnologie
- Soziale Ungleichheiten
- Feministische Wissenschafts- und Technikstudien
- Ethnologie des Wissens
- Soziale Transformationsprozesse
- Ethnolgie und Geschichte
Regionale Interessen
- Südasien
- Nördliches und östliches Indien
- Afrika-Indien Beziehungen
- Globale Verflechtungen
Projekte
Laufende Projekte
- “Big Data for Precise Interventions: Data-driven Development in India and Kenya” (2024-2028)
- Re-Bhooting: Bengali Ghosts in the Digital Age
- Indian Nurses in Switzerland: Migration Histories and Everyday Experiences
Abgeschlossene Projekte
- Visions of the Social: The Transformation of State Planning in Postcolonial India. Funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (Ambizione). 2019-2024
- The Transnational Commodity Chain of a Pharmaceutical. Funded by the Indo-Swiss Joint Research Programme in the Social Sciences and the Indian Council of Social Science Research. 2015–2017
- Reproductive Medicine in India. Funded by the Cluster of Excellence “Asia and Europe,” University of Heidelberg. 2010–2014
- Childbirth in Ladakh. Funded by the Germany Academic Exchange Service. 2007
Publikationen
- Bärnreuther, S., Bühler, N., & Danesi, G. (2025). Health-Related Expertise in the Digital Age: Reconfigurations and Redistributions. Medicine Anthropology Theory, 12 (1). Abgerufen von https://doi.org/10.17157/mat.12.1.10708
- Bärnreuther, S. (2025). Recast(e)ing Medicine in India: Contested Hierarchies of Expertise in Digital Primary Care. Medicine Anthropology Theory, 12 (1). Abgerufen von https://doi.org/10.17157/mat.12.1.9130
- Bärnreuther, S. (2025). Financializing Maternal and Newborn Care: Temporal Tensions within a Development Impact Bond in India. Development and Change. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14803309
- Bärnreuther, S. (2024). Surveillance Medicine 2.0: Digital Monitoring of Community Health Workers in India. Anthropology & Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1080/13648470.2024.2378733
- Bärnreuther, S. (2023). Disrupting Healthcare? Entrepreneurship as an “innovative” financing mechanism in India’s primary care sector. Social Science and Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.115314
- Bärnreuther, S. (2021). Racializing Infertility: How South/Asian-ness has been Constituted as an Independent Risk Factor in Infertility Research and IVF Practice. Social Science and Medicine, 280, 114008 ff. Abgerufen von https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114008
- Bärnreuther, S. (2020). Traders of Gametes, Brokers of Values: Mediating Commercial Gamete Donations in Delhi. Economy & Society, 49 (3), 455–473. https://doi.org/10.1080/03085147.2020.1743074
- Bärnreuther, S. (2019). When Time Stretches: Waiting and In Vitro Fertilization in India, 269–285. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3895188
- Bärnreuther, S. (2018). Suitable Substances: How Biobanks (Re)Store Biologicals. New Genetics and Society, 37 (4), 319–337. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3871530
- Bärnreuther, S. (2018). From Urine in India to Ampoules in Europe: The Relational Infrastructure of Human Chorionic Gonadotropin. Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 143 (1), 41–60. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3878120
- Bärnreuther, S. (2016). Innovations ‘Out of Place’: Controversies Over IVF Beginnings in India Between 1978 and 2005. Medical Anthropology, 35 (1), 73–89. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3878654
- Bärnreuther, S. (2008). Home or Hospital Delivery? The Perception and Use of Biomedicine in a Rural Village in Ladakh. Ladakh Studies Journal, 23, 12–19.
- Bärnreuther, Sandra, Bühler, Nolwenn, & Danesi, Giada (Hrsg.). (2025). Health-Related Expertise in the Digital Age. Medicine Anthropology Theory. Abgerufen von https://www.medanthrotheory.org/mat/issue/view/662
- Bärnreuther, Sandra, Böhmer, Maria, & Witt, Sophie (Hrsg.). (2020). Nach Feierabend. Zürcher Jahrbuch für Wissensgeschichte. Feierabend? (Rück-)Blicke auf »Wissen«. Zürich: Diaphanes.
- Genin, M., Hofmann, B., Bärnreuther, S., & Zemp, C. (2025). Innovative Teaching Formats at the Science-Society Interface: Reflections and Future Directions in Swiss Higher Education. Swiss Young Academy.
- Bärnreuther, S. (2021). In-Vitro-Fertilisation. Weshalb so grosser Markt in Indien? Cogito, 7, 34 ff. Abgerufen von https://www.unilu.ch/fileadmin/universitaet/verwaltung/oea/dokumente/cogito/cogito_7_2021.pdf
- Bärnreuther, S. (2020). Entrepreneurship and E-Health: How Promises of Innovation are Transforming India’s Primary Care Sector. Somatosphere. Abgerufen von http://somatosphere.net/2020/innovation-india-healthcare.html/
- Bärnreuther, S., & Cromer, R. (2019). Transforming Life: Mutable Materials in Reproductive Biobanks. Blog of ReproSoc. Abgerufen von http://www.reprosoc.com/blog/2019/6/4/transforming-life-mutable-materials-in-reproductive-biobanks
- Bärnreuther, S., Böhmer, M., & Witt, S. (2020). Editorial: Feierabend? (Rück-)Blicke auf »Wissen«. In Bärnreuther, Sandra, Böhmer, Maria & Witt, Sophie (Hrsg.), Nach Feierabend. Zürcher Jahrbuch für Wissensgeschichte 15: Feierabend? (Rück-)Blicke auf »Wissen« . Zürich: Diaphanes.
- Bärnreuther, S., & Quack, J. (2019). ?-Graphy. Book Symposium on “After Ethnos.”. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 19 (1), 183–187. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3881433
- Bärnreuther, S. (2018). Hormones. In Cultural Anthropology Website . Abgerufen von https://culanth.org/fieldsights/series/hormones
- Bärnreuther, S. (2011). Book Review: Where There Is No Midwife. Birth and Loss in Rural India. Anthropos, 106 (1).
Weitere Forschungsleistungen
- Politics by Display: India’s Digital Transformation of Welfare Services. (Panel-)Beitrag, 53th Annual Conference on South Asia, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Wisconsin-Madison, 2025
- Re-Bhut-ing: Storying India’s Digital Health Transformation. Referat, Conference: Redefinitions of Health and Well-Being, University of Vienna, Wien, 2025
- Software Power: India’s Digital Health Infrastructure as a Governmental Tool. Workshop, Unpacking the sociotechnical imaginaries of Digital Public Infrastructures (DPI), IIIT-Bangalore and University of Amsterdam, Bangalore, 2025
- Returns on Reproduction: Healthcare in Financialized Times. Workshop, The Financial Fix in the Global South, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, 2025
- Welfare Spectacles: Politics by Display in India’s Healthcare Sector. Workshop, Experimental Welfare Futures, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, 2025
- Governing (through) Healthcare: India’s Digital Health Infrastructure as a Global Public Good? Referat, Conference of the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology and the Society for Social Studies of Science, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, 2024
- Financializing Reproductive Care: How a development impact bond is creating investment opportunities in India. Referat, Conference: Impact Hau? Ethnographic Critiques of Sustainable Finance, University of Bologna, Bologna, 2024
- Traders of Gametes, Brokers of Values: Mediating Commercial Gamete Donations in Delhi. Referat, Reproductive Trouble? Gender, Technology, Politics, University of Geneva, Institute for Gender Studies, Genf, 2023
- Governing (through) Healthcare: India’s Digital Health Infrastructure and its Definition as a Global Public Good. Referat, Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, University of Toronto, Toronto, 2023
- Visions of the Digital: from a tool for healthcare delivery to a public good. Referat, Digitalizing Social Services. New Regimes of Welfare and Development in the Global South, University of Lucerne, Luzern, 2023
- Caring for Accountability: Digital Audit of Community Health Workers in India. Referat, Promises and Realities of Digital (Re)configurations, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, 2023
- From Investing in Health to Health as an Investment: The Case of an Impact Bond in India. Referat, Conference of the Association of Social Anthropologists, SOAS University of London, London, 2023
- The Medical Gaze in a Digital Age: Datafying Primary Healthcare in India. (Panel-)Beitrag, Symposium: The Datafication of Health: Novel Distributions and Reconfigurations of Expertise, University St. Gallen, St. Gallen, 2022
- Infertilität und In Vitro Fertilisation in Indien. Keynote, Infertilität, Höhere Fachschule Pflege, Bildungszentrum für Gesundheit und Soziales, Chur, Chur, 2022
- The medical gaze in a digital age: transforming primary care in India. Referat, Digital Technologies and the Future of Health: Aspirations, Care and Data, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, 2021
- Entrepreneurship and E-Health: How Promises of Innovation are Transforming India’s Primary Care Sector. Referat, Innovative Approaches in Health Care. India and beyond, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Online, 2021
- Micro Healthcare: Credit, entrepreneurship, and new markets in India’s primary care sector. Referat, Health for All?, University of Oslo, Online, 2021
- Planning and its Afterlives: the case of public health in India. Referat, New States/New Sciences, Kaplan, Martha; Kelly, John D.; Paidipaty, Poornima, Online, 2021
- Disrupting Care? Conflicting regimes of value in a digital health project in India. Referat, Conference of the Society for Social Studies of Science, Society for Social Studies of Science, Online, 2021
- Somatic Temporalities in IVF Hospitals in India. Referat, Temporalities of the Living: Health, Disease and Technology beyond the Life Course, STS Lab, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, 2020
- Hormonal Alchemy: The Transnational Commodity Chain of hCG. Referat, Anthropology of Hormones, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, 2020
- Discussion on “Cultural Appropriation”. Moderation, Cultural Appropriation, ZETHNO, Zürich, 2023
- How Social Problems are Rendered Calculable: Development Impact Bonds in India. Referat, Meeting of the German Anthropological Association, Konstanz, German Anthropological Association, Konstanz, 2019
- The Raw and the Ready-Made: Discourses Of Purity Around Human Chorionic Gonadotropin. Referat, Conference of the Society for Social Studies of Science, New Orleans, Society for Social Studies of Science, New Orleans, 2019
- Embryo Engagements. Referat, The Politics and Ethics of Life in South Asia, University of Zurich, Zürich, 2018
- Textures and Transformations. Referat, Fringe Science and Threadbare Knowledge, UZH and ETH Zurich, Zürich, 2017
- The Interdependence of Movement and Stabilization. Referat, The Emergence and Dissolution of (Medical) Knowledge: Uncertainty and Openness, Center “History of Knowledge” at UZH and ETH Zurich, Zürich, 2017
- The Making of a Pharmaceutical: hCG and its Transnational Trajectory between India and Europe. Referat, Transfigurationen: Medizin Macht Gesellschaft Macht Medizin, Conference at the University of Basel, Basel, 2017
- (Re-)storing Reproductive Substances: Biobanks as Transformative Spaces in IVF Hospitals in India. Referat, Biobanques: Quelles Reconfigurations Pour Le Vivant? Approches Interdisciplinaires et Comparatives, Conference at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, Paris, 2016
- The Body in Action: Socio-material Engagements in In Vitro Fertilization Hospitals in India. Referat, Annual Meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science, Denver, Society for Social Studies of Science, Denver, 2015
- (Medizin) UND (Kultur) in der Ethnologie. Referat, Was ist Medizin? Perspektiven aus den Medical Humanities, University of Zurich, Zürich, 2015
- Spaces of Evidence: Early IVF Experiments in India. Referat, European Conference on South Asian Studies, Zurich, European Conference on South Asian Studies, Zürich, 2014
- Endocrine Tales: Communicating With and Through Bodies in IVF Clinics in India. Referat, Praktiken & ihre Körper. Was für ein Artefakt ist der Leib?, Mainzer Symposium der Sozial- und Kulturwissenschaften, Mainz, 2013
- Somatic Stories: Bodily Encounters in IVF Clinics in India. Referat, Encounters and Engagements. Creating New Agendas for Medical Anthropology, Joint Conference at the University of Tarragona, Tarragona, 2013
- ‘Good’ Embryos: Technologies of Selection in IVF Laboratories. Referat, Selective Reproductive Technologies – Routes of Routinisation and Globalization, Conference at the University of Copenhagen, Kopenhagen, 2012
- Blurring In Vivo/ In Vitro Boundaries: The Extension of the Body in IVF Clinics in India. Referat, 111th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, 2012
- Biovalue. The Case of IVF in India. Referat, Annual Conference of the Cluster “Asia and Europe” Heidelberg, Cluster “Asia and Europe”, Heidelberg, 2011
- Technologies in Circulation: Assisted Reproduction in India. Referat, Annual Medical Anthropology Young Scholars Meeting, Warsaw, Medical Anthropology, Warschau, 2011
- Embryo Ethnographies. The Social Life of Gametes and Embryos. Referat, AAS-ICAS Joint Conference, Honolulu, AAS-ICAS, Honolulu, 2011
- Transnational Reproductive Care in India. Reflections of an Intended Mother. Referat, European Conference on Modern South Asian Studies, Bonn, Modern South Asian Studies, Bonn, 2010
- Zwischen Haus- und Krankenhausgeburt – eine ethnologische Perspektive auf Geburt in Ladak. Referat, Annual Conference of the Working Group Ethnomedicine at the University of Heidelberg, Working Group Ethnomedicine at the University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, 2009
- Home or Hospital? Negotiating Childbirth in Rural Ladakh. Referat, Conference of the German Anthropological Association, Frankfurt, German Anthropological Association, Frankfurt, 2009
- Digitalization of Welfare in South Asia, Organisation einer Sektion/eines Panels, Wisconsin-Madison, 2025
- The Politics of Care, Mitglied Organisationskomitee, Crêt-Bérard, 2025
- Workshop with the Swiss Young Academy; Teaching at the Science-Society Interface, (Co-)Organisator/in, Bern, 2024
- Panel at the Annual Meeting of the Swiss Anthropological Association: Thinking Through Impact: Ethnographic Approaches, Organisation einer Sektion/eines Panels, Luzern, 2024
- Infernal Challenge: Narrating the Planetary Crisis, (Co-)Organisator/in, Luzern, 2023
- Conference: Approaching Biographies, Life-Histories, and Self Narratives: Transdisciplinary Perspectives from India and Europe, (Co-)Organisator/in, New Delhi, 2017
- Digitalizing Social Services. New Regimes of Welfare and Development in the Global South, Tagungsleiter/in, Luzern, 2023
- The Datafication of Health: Novel Distributions and Reconfigurations of Expertise, Mitglied Organisationskomitee, St. Gallen, 2022
- Unequal data? Risks and opportunities for healthcare, Organisation einer Sektion/eines Panels, Online, 2021
- Global Health Futures and the Social Good, Organisation einer Sektion/eines Panels, Online, 2021
- Metrics: How Things are Rendered Calculable, (Co-)Organisator/in, Online, 2021
- Hormones on the Move: Transnational Entanglements in the Everyday, Organisation einer Sektion/eines Panels, New Orleans, 2019
- Annual Meeting of the Swiss Anthropological Association: Knowledge (Trans-)formations in Anthropology, (Co-)Organisator/in, Zürich, 2018
- Workshop: The Politics and Ethics of Life in South Asia, (Co-)Organisator/in, Zürich, 2018
- Workshop: Research in Teams and Reciprocal Anthropology, (Co-)Organisator/in, Zürich, 2016
- Conference: Fringe Science and Threadbare Knowledge, (Co-)Organisator/in, Zürich, 2017
- Workshop: ? –graphy, (Co-)Organisator/in, Zürich, 2017
- Workshop: Writing Spaces: Creative Writing for Anthropologists, (Co-)Organisator/in, Zürich, 2017
- Workshop: How to Get Published, (Co-)Organisator/in, Zürich, 2016
- South Asia Forum, (Co-)Organisator/in, Zürich, 2015
- Practices of Proof in South Asia: The Production, Negotiation and Use of Evidence in Medicine and Healing, Organisation einer Sektion/eines Panels, Zürich, 2014
- Travelling Technologies, Tracing Transculturality: Paradigm Shifts in Science, Medicine and Society, Organisation einer Sektion/eines Panels, Heidelberg, 2011
- Caring for Accountability: Digital Monitoring of Community Health Workers in India. Colloquium, Pune, 2025
- Recast(e)ing Medicine in India: Contested Hierarchies of Expertise in Digital Primary Care. Colloquium, New Delhi, 2025
- Recasting healthcare in India: divisions of labour and hierarchies of expertise in digital primary care. Anthropology of Health Research Seminar, Durham, 2024
- Caring for Accountability: Digital Audit of Health Workers in India. Culture, Medicine, Power Research Group, London, 2024
- Financializing Healthcare in India: How an impact bond turns reproductive care into an investment opportunity. Reproduction Research Cluster, London, 2024
- From Investing in Health to Health as an Investment: The Case of an Impact Bond in India. Global Health Unpacked, Oslo, 2023
- Caring for Accountability: Digital Audit of Health Workers in India. Medical Anthropology and History Seminar, Oslo, 2023
- Risky Hormones Seminar: Book talk on Substantial Relations. Institute of the History of Medicine and Ethics in Medicine, Berlin, 2023
- Meet the Author: Book talk on Substantial Relations. STS Lab, Lausanne, 2023
- Talk in the library: Book talk on Substantial Relations. Institutskolloquium, Zürich, 2022
- Book talk on Substantial Relations. Conversations on Social Reproduction, London, 2022
- The medical gaze in a digital age. Datafying primary healthcare in India. Kolloquium, Kolkata, 2022
- Digital Transformations in India’s Primary Healthcare Sector. Seminar: Sociologie des inégalités en Inde, Paris, 2022
- Researching Reproductive Medicine in India. Approaching Research in the Field of Human Reproduction, Zurich, 2021
- Entrepreneurship for the social good? Value conflicts in a digital health project in India. Health and Wellbeing Lecture Series, Leipzig, 2021
- Financializing Healthcare in India? The Case of Impact Bonds. Medical Anthropology Forum, Heidelberg, 2021
- Participant Observation as a Method of Ethnography. Qualitative Research Methods in Social Sciences, Kolkata, 2020
- From Urine to Ampoule: The Commodity Chain of Human Chorionic Gonadotropin between India and Europe. ANSO Seminar, Genf, 2018
- Race as Risk? ‘Race’ and ‘ethnicity’ in medical research and clinical practice in India. Colloquium, Bayreuth, 2018
- Race as Risk? Race and ethnicity in medical research and clinical practice in India. Interrogating the Intersections of Race and Reproduction in Medicine, Science, and Technology, New York City, 2018
- Innovations Postcolonial: The Making of IVF in India. Innovationsgesellschaft heute: Die reflexive Herstellung des Neuen, Berlin, 2017
- Surprising Relations: The Untimely Commodity Chain of a Pharmaceutical. Colloquium, Luzern, 2017
- Producing Reproductive Medicine: A Hormone and its Transnational Commodity Chain. General Seminar, Kalkutta, 2016
- The Making of a Pharmaceutical: hCG and its Transnational Trajectory. Colloquium, New Delhi, 2016
- Messengers: Reading Transnational Relations between India and Europe Through the Trajectory of Biological Material. Colloquium, New Delhi, 2016
- Observing Things You Cannot See? Practices of Knowing in Embryology Laboratories in Delhi. Colloquium, Bern, 2016
- Innovations ‘Out of Place’: IVF Beginnings in India and Politics of Knowledge Production. Negotiations & Assertions. Engaging with Political Realities in Contemporary South Asia, Guwahati, 2016
- Out of Place: Contestations over In Vitro Fertilization Experiments in India between 1978 and 2005. Colloquium, Zürich, 2014
- Bemixt and Between: The Circulation of Gametes in Indian Fertility Clinics. Globalization and Biomedical Technologies: Circulation, Appropriation and Diversion, Paris, 2012
- Biomedical Lives: Doing Fieldwork on In Vitro Fertilization in Delhi. Medical Anthropology Forum, Heidelberg, 2012
- Board Member of the Research Center “Health and Society” at the University of Lucerne, Vorstandsmitglied, Schweiz, 2024–
- Board Member of the Swiss Anthropological Association, Vorstandsmitglied, Schweiz, 2024–
- Board Member of the Scientific Committee of the Swiss Graduate Program in Anthropology (CUSO), Vorstandsmitglied, Schweiz, 2024–
- ZETHNO, Mitglied, Schweiz, 2023–
- Swiss Young Academy, Mitglied, Schweiz, 2020–2025
- Gastforscher/in, University of Oslo, Institute of Health and Society, 2023–2023
- Associate Member, Center “History of Knowledge”, 2016–2020
- Mitglied, Working Groups “Medical Humanities” and “Knowledge and Economy” at the Center “History of Knowledge” UZH and ETH Zurich, 2016–2020
- Vorstandsmitglied, Association of the Academic Teaching and Research Staff of the University of Zurich, 2015–2019
- Representative of the academic teaching and research staff, Senate of the University of Zurich, 2016–2019
- Representative of the academic teaching and research staff, Gender Equality Commission of the University of Zurich, 2016–2019
- Representative of the academic teaching and research staff, Department of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies, University of Zurich, 2015–2016
