Transnationalising Reproduction ─ Third Party Conception in a Globalised World

This book about ‘third party conception’ (gamete and embryo donation and surrogacy arrangements) will provide an original and timely contribution to work on assisted reproduction. Third party conception is a growing phenomenon and provokes a burgeoning range of ethical, legal and social questions. What are the rights of donors, recipients and donor conceived children? How are these reproductive technologies regulated? How is kinship understood within these new family forms? Does the flow of people and gametes across borders present evidence of growing inequalities, the commodification of embodiment and capitalist exploitation; or is it an exciting development within contemporary kinship in a global world? These questions are presented in relation to research on the everyday realities of people whose lives are touched by third party conception – for example donor egg recipients, donor conceived people, and surrogate mothers. Drawing on contributions from leading scholars, this book presents an international range of work that unpacks some of the complexities generated by new technologies that may unravel popular understandings of family, self and identity.

Roisin Ryan-Flood is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Director of the Centre for Intimate and Sexual Citizenship (CISC) at the University of Essex, UK. Her research interests include gender, sexuality, citizenship, assisted conception, migration and critical epistemologies. Her publications include the monograph Lesbian Motherhood: Gender, Families and Sexual Citizenship (Palgrave, 2009) and a co-edited book (with Rosalind Gill), Secrecy and Silence in the Research Process: Feminist Reflections (Routledge, 2010). She has edited several journal special issues on topics such as sexuality and visual culture; sexuality and social theory; and feminist epistemology. Her current research explores egg and embryo donation.

Jenny Gunnarsson Payne is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Historical and Contemporary Studies at Sodertorn University, Sweden. Her current research projects concern the transnationalisation of egg- and embryo donation in post-socialist Europe as well as issues concerning gender and reproductive ageing in relation to egg banks and so called "social egg freezing". She is co-editor of the volume Tracking Discourses: Politics, Identity and Social Change (Nordic Academic Press, 2011) and her work has appeared in journals and edited volumes such as European Journal of Women’s Studies (2012), The International Encyclopedia of Media Studies (2012) and Gender, Place, and, Culture (2013).