IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v50y2018i8p1626-1645.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The affective economy of transnational surrogacy

Author

Listed:
  • Carolin Schurr
  • Elisabeth Militz

Abstract

The booming business of global surrogacy has come to a halt: one surrogacy hub after the other has started to regulate the incremental flow of intended parents to the Global South hoping to fulfill their desire for a baby with the help of a foreign surrogate laborer. Thailand and Nepal have banned surrogacy altogether; India and Mexico insist on the altruistic nature of their surrogacy arrangements. As the drive for altruistic surrogacy suggests, the baby holds an exceptional position in many societies: ideas about the ‘unique’ maternal bond create public unease about the commercialization of babies in surrogacy markets. Drawing on economic sociology and theories of affect, this paper argues that multiple processes of affective attachment, detachment and reattachment shape transnational surrogacy journeys. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Mexico’s surrogacy industry, the paper studies processes of commodification and decommodification in three instances of market-making: (1) the assignment of value and a price to reproductive laborers’ bodies on the basis of affective postcolonial geographies of beauty; (2) the affective/effective organization of the market encounter through contracts and communication rules and (3) the detachment of the final ‘good’ of the baby from the surrogate laborer. Transnational surrogacy arrangements, the paper concludes, are always forms of partial commodification – no matter whether they are framed as altruistic or commercial – because processes of affective/effective attachment and detachment are fundamental for delineating the intimate boundaries of families that come into life with the assistance of the globally operating surrogacy industry.

Suggested Citation

  • Carolin Schurr & Elisabeth Militz, 2018. "The affective economy of transnational surrogacy," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 50(8), pages 1626-1645, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:50:y:2018:i:8:p:1626-1645
    DOI: 10.1177/0308518X18769652
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0308518X18769652
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0308518X18769652?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michel Callon & Fabian Muniesa, 2005. "Economic markets as calculative collective devices," Post-Print halshs-00087477, HAL.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Quinn, Martin & Feeney, Orla, 2022. "Domestic Waste Management in Ireland - the Journey Towards Financialization," QBS Working Paper Series 271266, Queen's University Belfast, Queen's Business School.
    2. Joanne P. Baron, 2018. "Making money in Mesoamerica: Currency production and procurement in the Classic Maya financial system," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 5(2), pages 210-223, June.
    3. Caterina Galluccio, 2023. "Crime Prevention through Social Finance and Social Impact Bonds," Sociology and Social Work Review, International Society for projects in Education and Research, vol. 7(2), pages 112-120, December.
    4. Möllering, Guido, 2009. "Market constitution analysis: A new framework applied to solar power technology markets," MPIfG Working Paper 09/7, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    5. Hayoun, Shaul, 2019. "How fair value is both market-based and entity-specific: The irreducibility of value constellations to market prices," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 68-82.
    6. Heidi Østbø Haugen, 2018. "The unmaking of a commodity: Intermediation and the entanglement of power cables in Nigeria," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 50(6), pages 1295-1313, September.
    7. McFall, Liz, 2015. "Is digital disruption the end of health insurance? Some thoughts on the devising of risk," economic sociology. perspectives and conversations, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, vol. 17(1), pages 32-44.
    8. Iain White, 2020. "Rigour and rigour mortis? Planning, calculative rationality, and forces of stability and change," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(14), pages 2885-2900, November.
    9. Zac J. Taylor, 2020. "The real estate risk fix: Residential insurance-linked securitization in the Florida metropolis," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 52(6), pages 1131-1149, September.
    10. Walter, Christian, 2016. "The financial Logos: The framing of financial decision-making by mathematical modelling," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 597-604.
    11. Martha Poon, 2009. "From New Deal institutions to capital markets: commercial consumer risk scores and the making of subprime mortgage finance," Post-Print halshs-00359712, HAL.
    12. Rezende, Daniel Carvalho de, 2014. "Politics in Food Markets: alternative modes of qualification and engaging," Brazilian Journal of Rural Economy and Sociology (Revista de Economia e Sociologia Rural-RESR), Sociedade Brasileira de Economia e Sociologia Rural, vol. 52(2), pages 1-14, June.
    13. Franck Aggeri, 2017. "How can performativity contribute to management and organization research? Theoretical perspectives and analytical framework [Qu'est-ce que la performativité peut apporter aux recherches en managem," Post-Print hal-01609172, HAL.
    14. Okamoto, Noriaki, 2014. "Fair value accounting from a distributed cognition perspective," Accounting forum, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 170-183.
    15. Orlikowski, Wanda J. & Scott, Susan V., 2015. "The algorithm and the crowd: considering the materiality of service innovation," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 57601, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    16. Pollock, Neil & D’Adderio, Luciana, 2012. "Give me a two-by-two matrix and I will create the market: Rankings, graphic visualisations and sociomateriality," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 565-586.
    17. Cuckston, Thomas, 2022. "Accounts of NGO performance as calculative spaces: Wild Animals, wildlife restoration and strategic agency," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    18. Sullivan, S. & Hannis, M., 2015. "Nets and frames, losses and gains: Value struggles in engagements with biodiversity offsetting policy in England," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 15(C), pages 162-173.
    19. Gerhard Rainer, 2021. "Geographies of qualification in the global fine wine market," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(1), pages 95-112, February.
    20. Faulconbridge, James R. & Muzio, Daniel, 2021. "Valuation devices and the dynamic legitimacy-performativity nexus: The case of PEP in the English legal profession," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:50:y:2018:i:8:p:1626-1645. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.