Transnational Reproduction explores the global surrogacy industry in India, focusing on the ways in which surrogate mothers, parents, egg providers, and doctors navigate their relationships formed through gestational surrogacy. In the early 2010s India was one of the top providers of surrogacy services in the world. Drawing on in-depth ethnographic research in India, Transnational Reproduction argues that while the surrogacy industry in India offers a clear example of “stratified reproduction”—the ways in which political, economic, and social forces structure the conditions under which women carry out reproductive labor—it also complicates that concept as the various actors work to understand their relationships to one another. The book pays special attention to the racial dimensions within transnational surrogacy, investigating how race is constructed among the various actors involved. The book outlines how particular notions of race and difference intersect with notions of kinship and relatedness. Ultimately, the book shows how practices of racialization shape kinship and family making, arguing that racial reproductive imaginaries underpin the unequal relations at the heart of transnational surrogacy. This book illustrates how actors constitute racial reproductive imaginaries through various transnational reproductive practices: through practices that Other, through articulation of difference, and through the production and reproduction of power and stratification.
The affective economy of transnational surrogacy