Wombs in Labor: Transnational Commercial Surrogacy in India

Awards:   Commended for Honorable Mention - Adele E. Clark Book Award 2015 Commended for Honorable Mention - Adele E. Clark Book Award 2016 Commended for Honorable Mention – Adele E. Clark Book Award 2015 Long-listed for ICAS Book Prize 2017 Long-listed for ICAS Book Prize, International Convention of Asia Scholars 2017
Author:   Amrita Pande
Publisher:   Columbia University Press
ISBN:  

9780231169912


Pages:   272
Publication Date:   23 September 2014
Format:   Paperback
Availability:   Manufactured on demand   Availability explained
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Wombs in Labor: Transnational Commercial Surrogacy in India


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Awards

  • Commended for Honorable Mention - Adele E. Clark Book Award 2015
  • Commended for Honorable Mention - Adele E. Clark Book Award 2016
  • Commended for Honorable Mention – Adele E. Clark Book Award 2015
  • Long-listed for ICAS Book Prize 2017
  • Long-listed for ICAS Book Prize, International Convention of Asia Scholars 2017

Overview

Surrogacy is India's new form of outsourcing, as couples from all over the world hire Indian women to bear their children for a fraction of the cost of surrogacy elsewhere with little to no government oversight or regulation. In the first detailed ethnography of India's surrogacy industry, Amrita Pande visits clinics and hostels and speaks with surrogates and their families, clients, doctors, brokers, and hostel matrons in order to shed light on this burgeoning business and the experiences of the laborers within it. From recruitment to training to delivery, Pande's research focuses on how reproduction meets production in surrogacy and how this reflects characteristics of India's larger labor system. Pande's interviews prove surrogates are more than victims of disciplinary power, and she examines the strategies they deploy to retain control over their bodies and reproductive futures. While some women are coerced into the business by their families, others negotiate with clients and their clinics to gain access to technologies and networks otherwise closed to them. As surrogates, the women Pande meets get to know and make the most of advanced medical discoveries. They traverse borders and straddle relationships that test the boundaries of race, class, religion, and nationality. Those who focus on the inherent inequalities of India's surrogacy industry believe the practice should be either banned or strictly regulated. Pande instead advocates for a better understanding of this complex labor market, envisioning an international model of fair-trade surrogacy founded on openness and transparency in all business, medical, and emotional exchanges.

Full Product Details

Author:   Amrita Pande
Publisher:   Columbia University Press
Imprint:   Columbia University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 1.50cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.368kg
ISBN:  

9780231169912


ISBN 10:   0231169914
Pages:   272
Publication Date:   23 September 2014
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand   Availability explained
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.
Language:   English

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments 1. Introduction: Wombs in Labor 2. Pro-natal Technologies in an Anti-natal State 3. When the Fish Talk About the Water 4. Manufacturing the Perfect Mother-Worker 5. Everyday Divinities and God's Labor 6. Embodied Labor and Neo-eugenics 7. Disposable Workers and Dirty Labor 8. Disposable Mothers and Kin Labor 9. Conclusion: Aporia of Surrogacy Epilogue: Did the Sperm on a Rickshaw Save the Third World? Appendix A. Selected Clauses from the Assisted Reproductive Technologies (Regulation) Draft Bill Appendix B. Consent Form to Be Signed by Surrogates Appendix C. Descriptive Tables Notes Works Cited Index

Reviews

This is an invaluable work: an eye-opening, intimate ethnographic study of surrogacy at one successful clinic in India. Pande writes vividly, sensitively, and with critical intelligence about an incredibly complex modern phenomenon. Her attentiveness to the diverse situations and personalities of surrogate mothers is her book's greatest contribution; a gripping read. -- Ann Grodzins Gold, Syracuse University In this brave and unique study of what is probably the world's largest commercial infertility clinic, Amrita Pande takes us with empathy and grace into the world of the Indian surrogate. How does she feel about carrying a baby she must give up? Highly perceptive, deeply thoughtful, and analytically nuanced, Pande proposes some new answers to a new question. An important book and a great read. -- Arlie Hochschild, author of The Outsourced Self


An invaluable work. Pande writes vividly, sensitively, and with critical intelligence about an incredibly complex modern phenomenon. Her attentiveness to the diverse situations and personalities of surrogate mothers is her book's greatest strength. A gripping read. -- Ann Grodzins Gold, Syracuse University In this brave and unique study, Amrita Pande takes us with empathy and grace into the world of the Indian surrogate, asking how she feels about carrying a baby she must give up. Highly perceptive, deeply thoughtful, and analytically nuanced, Pande proposes new answers to a new question. An important book and a great read. -- Arlie Hochschild, author of The Outsourced Self: What Happens When We Pay Others to Live Our Lives for Us A rich, nuanced analysis that recognizes these women's attempts to negotiate the challenges of class, gender, race, and citizenship. In analyzing both their actions and their accounts, Pande explores how Indian surrogates resist, reframe, and seek to build better lives for themselves and their families through their globalized labor. -- Joya Misra, University of Massachusetts, Amherst Wombs in Labor is an absorbing and meticulously researched work. Amrita Pande fruitfully scrutinises the minutiae of interactions among surrogates and the community of a clinic for their underlying meaning... recommended to anyone interested in the subject of surrogacy and will please all readers. London School of Economics and Political Science Wombs in Labor is an important book that sheds light on the workings of transnational commercial surrogacy in India... This book is a valuable read for anyone interested in commercial surrogacy, global inequality and women's labor. -- Koh Sin Yee Asian Review of Books


Author Information

Amrita Pande is a senior lecturer in sociology at the University of Cape Town. Her research focuses on the intersection of new technologies and reproductive labor, and her writings have appeared in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Gender and Society, Critical Social Policy, International Migration Review, Qualitative Sociology, Feminist Studies, the Indian Journal of Gender Studies, Reproductive BioMedicine, and in several edited volumes. She is also an educator-performer and is currently involved in a multimedia theater performance, Made in India: Notes from a Baby Farm, which is based on her ethnographic work on surrogacy.

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