LAUSR

Wombs in Labor: Transnational Commercial Surrogacy in India by Amrita Pande is a deeply personal yet political book that presents a nuanced understanding of transnational surrogacy in India. The outcome of extensive ethnographic fieldwork, the book reflects primary research conducted by the author in one of India’s first surrogacy clinics and surrogate hostels in a small town in India. However, rather than focusing on the couples who opt for surrogacy, Pande places the surrogates at the centre of the analysis. The reflections that emerge from the ethnographic data portray an intimate analysis of the lives, hopes, aspirations and expectations of the surrogates as well as their families, brokers, intended parents, doctors, nurses and the surrogacy hostel matrons. Woven into these intimate stories is an intricate feminist analysis that engages with ideas of labour and work while reflecting on discussions around reproductive technologies, population policies, bodies, surveillance, medicalisation, economic inequalities, emotional work (which Pande calls ‘kin labor’ in Chapter 8), motherhood and stigma. The book enhances discussions around reproductive labour while focusing on macro global forces marked by governmental, political and medical systems.