Making India the “mother destination”: Outsourcing labor to Indian surrogates

Abstract

This chapter examines the emergence of India as a site for surrogacy, which has led intended parents from all over the world to contract with Indian gestational surrogates to carry “their” babies for them. Through participant observation in a surrogacy workshop, interviews with American intended parents, and interviews with Indian surrogates, I show how ideologies of normative, nuclear families built around genetically similar children, drives American consumers' desires to seek fertility intervention, and, finally, surrogacy. In India, gender ideologies shape the contours of an inexpensive, compliant labor force of surrogate mothers.

Citation

Rudrappa, S. (2010), "Making India the “mother destination”: Outsourcing labor to Indian surrogates", Williams, C.L. and Dellinger, K. (Ed.) Gender and Sexuality in the Workplace (Research in the Sociology of Work, Vol. 20), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 253-285. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0277-2833(2010)0000020014