As commercial surrogacy in India dominates public conversations around reproduction, new kinds of families, and changing trends in globalization, its lived realities become an important aspect of emerging research. This book maps the way in which in vitro fertilization (IVF) specialists, surrogacy agents, commissioning couples, surrogate mothers, and egg donors contribute to the understanding of interpersonal relations in the process of commercial surrogacy. In this book, Majumdar draws from a context that is enmeshed in the local–global politics of reproduction, including the ways in which the transnational commercial surrogacy arrangement has led to an ongoing debate regarding ethics and morality in the sphere of reproductive rights. In weaving together the diverse, often conflicting experiences of individuals and families, the transnational commercial surrogacy arrangement comes alive as a process mirroring larger societal anxieties with reference to technological interventions in intimate relationships. It is these anxieties, dilemmas, and their negotiations to which the book is addressed.

Although estimated as a multi-billion dollar industry, surrogacy has still not found prominence in legislation in India, neither does it feature in the nation’s public discourse. This short introduction explores how surrogacy is practiced and understood in India and across the world. Why is a surrogate hired? Why does a woman carry a child for an infertile couple? Why is there a need to delve deeper into the motivations for and notions attached with entering a surrogacy arrangement for all involved? This book focuses on the relationship between surrogacy and issues of reproduction, kinship, women’s bodies, assisted reproductive technologies, and transnational reproductive tourism. At the same time it places surrogacy in the context of mythology, popular imagination, and legal and public discourses. In exploring the differences between various forms of surrogacy—commercial and altruistic, genetic and gestational, domestic and transnational—the book seeks to move beyond these opposing dualities and begin a dialogue regarding the practice.

Surrogacy in Russia focuses on commercial surrogacy workers in Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union. Examining workers' reproductive migrations, the study presents insights into cross-border reproductive treatment and travels for assisted reproduction, and links to ethnicity, feminism, women’s and gender studies.

This volume looks at the implications of transcultural humanities in South Asia, which is becoming a crucial area of research within literary and cultural studies. The volume also explores various complex critical dimensions of transculturation, its indeterminate periodisation, its temporal and spatial nonlinearity, its territoriality and intersectionality. Drawing on contributors from around the globe, the entries look at literature and poetics, theory and praxis, borders and nations, politics, Partition, gender and sexuality, the environment, representations in art and pedagogy and the transcultural classroom. Using key examples and case studies, the contributors look at current developments in transcultural and transnational standpoints and their possible educational outcomes. A broad and comprehensive collection, as it also speaks about the value of the humanities and the significance of South Asian contexts, Transcultural Humanities in South Asia will be of particular interest to those working on postcolonial studies, literary studies, Asian studies and more.

Provides fresh perspectives on the past, present and future-facing contributions of the anthropology of reproduction. A Companion to the Anthropology of Reproductive Medicine and Technology provides a timely and comprehensive overview of the anthropological study of reproductive practices, technologies, and interventions in a global context. Exploring the medical and technological management of human reproduction through a sociocultural lens, this groundbreaking volume reviews past and current research, discusses contemporary debates and recent theoretical developments, introduces key themes and trends, examines ongoing issues of equity, inclusivity, and reproductive justice around the world, and more. The Companion brings together essays by multidisciplinary scholars in fields including sociocultural anthropology, medical anthropology, reproductive health, global public health, Science and Technology Studies (STS), gender and sexuality studies, critical race studies, and environmental studies, to list but a few. Five thematically organized sections address reproductive practitioners and paradigms, global reproductive health and interventions, reproductive justice, the life-course approach to the study of reproductive health, and the future of reproductive technology and medicine. Using clear, jargon-free language, the authors investigate pregnancy and childbirth; fertility treatments; birth control, contraception and abortion; COVID-19 and reproduction; reproductive cancers; epigenetics; social discrimination; gender and sexualities and reproduction for LGBTQIA+ communities; race and reproduction; migration and reproduction; reproduction and war; reproductive health financing; reproduction and disabilities, reproduction and the environment; and other important contemporary topics. A cutting-edge guide to the modern study of reproduction, this groundbreaking volume: Provides an overview of the links between anthropological study and progressive work in medicine, healthcare, and technology Addresses both the challenges and opportunities facing researchers in the field Identifies gaps in current scholarship and offers recommendations for future research topics and methodologies Highlights the importance of ethnographic research combined with critical engagements with other disciplines for the anthropology of reproduction Explores the impact of socioeconomic conditions, environmental challenges, public policy, and legislation on reproductive health outcomes Traces the history of the field and demonstrates how anthropologists have engaged with issues of reproductive justice Part of the acclaimed Wiley Blackwell Companions to Anthropology series, A Companion to the Anthropology of Reproductive Medicine and Technology is an essential resource for undergraduate and graduate students, researchers, and scholars in medical anthropology, science technology and society, cultural anthropology, ethnology, and gender studies, as well as medical practitioners, policymakers, and activists involved in global and public health and reproductive justice.

Bringing together emerging ethnographies on kinship in South Asia, this book explores the idea of kinship as ‘fiction’ in intimate relationships. Fictions and fictive kinship within anthropology are contested ideas. Increasingly, research suggests the idea of intimate relationships has to extend beyond the biological assumption of kinship relations. The idea of fiction is also not free from the biological imagination or the persistent dichotomy of nature-culture/nurture-nature. This edited volume resurrects the idea of fiction and fictive-ness to understand how intimate relationships may use these particular labels, translate into practices, or create an experiential understanding around relationships. The chapters in this book reengage the idea of fiction by exploring the ambiguity within household relationships, the process of making and engaging with a craft and skill, and the intricacies of making children through IVF and third-party involvement. They challenge societal norms of marriage and being married by reframing shared substances and the relationality they carry and by remembering deceased ties through acts of resurrection. Through vivid illustrations of life and living in South Asia, each chapter contributes to an understanding of how fiction and reality are mutually creating each other. This book will be beneficial to students, academics and scholars of anthropology, particularly those interested in kinship and the sociology of the family. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Contemporary South Asia.

This book is the first to bring together an interdisciplinary collection of essays on surrogacy and egg donation from three socially, legally and culturally distinct countries - India, Israel and Germany. It presents contributions from experts in the field of social and cultural sciences, bioethics, law as well as psychology and provides critical-reflective comparative analysis of the socio-ethical factors shaping surrogacy and egg donation practices across these three countries. This book highlights the importance of a comparative perspective to ‘make sense’ of controversies and transitions in this highly contested area of artificial reproductive technologies. It demonstrates how local developments cannot be isolated from global events and vice versa. Therefore, this volume can be used as a standard reference for anyone seeking to understand surrogacy and egg donation from a macro-perspective in the next decade.