Damnjanović, Ivana |Serbia

Ivana Damnjanović

Fellow at IAS-STS: 2015/16

Ivana Damnjanović holds a PhD in political science from University of Belgrade – Faculty of Political Science, where she is currently teaching as assistant professor. In her doctoral project she explored relationship between technology and politics and its conceptualization in contemporary political theory. Interactions and intersections of politics and technology remained main theme in her research. So far, her work was focused primarily on use of new information technologies for political participation, technologies of political violence, reproductive technologies, as well as conceptualizations of technology within political thought, especially in works of Yugoslav and Serbian authors.

Project at IAS-STS: Re-imagining families: in vitro fertilization and surrogacy in Serbia

By expanding choices available to women, assisted reproductive technologies can be viewed as means of empowerment. However, prevailing narratives, traditions and other cultural influences could easily skew this view. My intention is to explore framework within which these technologies are regulated in Serbia. Namely, are they seen primarily as service to women, or are they shaped by the narrative of nation building (or, more precisely, national self-preservation). Combining the concepts of national sociotechnical imaginaries and notion of nations as imagined, limited and sovereign, political communities, I will try to explain changes in public policy in Serbia regarding fertility treatments, especially in vitro fertilization and surrogacy. My hypothesis is that predominant view on assisted reproductive technologies in Serbia is that they ought to serve promotion of collective – family or national – values, rather than expand life choices of individuals and contribute to their personal satisfaction. In my research I intend to analyze current policies and legal solutions, but also media reports about assisted reproductive technologies. Hopefully, this would provide some insight in the shaping, regulating and governing these technologies in Serbia today.

 

Selected Publications

Political Violence and Technology, Nauka i društvo - časopis za društvene nauke No. 1, 2015 (summer)

Terorizam i tehnologija, in „Terorizam kao globalna pretnja”, Pravni fakultet za privredu i pravosuđe, Novi Sad/Centar za bezbednosne studije, Beograd, 2012, pp. 340-352

Tehnologija između utopije i distopije, Godišnjak FPN, Vol 8, No. 11, Jun 2014, pp. 9-22

Politika i tehnika u delu Mihaila Markovića, Godišnjak FPN, Vol. 6, No. 7, pp. 61-76