Transnational Reproduction traces the relationships among Western aspiring parents, Indian surrogates, and egg donors from around the world. It argues that the surrogacy industry offers a clear example of “stratified reproduction”—the ways in which political, economic, and social forces structure the conditions under which women carry out physical and social reproductive labor.
The book shows how these actors make sense of their connections, illuminating the ways in which kinship ties are challenged, transformed, or reinforced in the context of transnational gestational surrogacy. It demonstrates that while reproductive actors share a common quest for conception, they make sense of family in the context of globalized assisted reproductive technologies in very different ways. The book therefore offers a more robust and nuanced understanding of race and power as ideas about kinship intersect with structures of inequality.