ANTH/WMGS ISSUES IN THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF KINSHIP
Winter 2018

CHILDREN AND DESCENT
NOTE MIDTERM TEST FEBRUARY 5

Jan. 29, 31: The impact of new reproductive technologies
Required readings: Pande, Amrit (2015) “Blood, sweat and dummy tummies: Kin labour and transnational surrogacy in India.” Anthropologica 57(1): 53-62.

Inhorn, Marcia (2004) “Middle Eastern masculinities in the age of new reproductive technologies: Male infertility and stigma in Egypt and Lebanon.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly. 18(2):162–182.

How does culture affect fertility and whether and what kinds of infertility/fertility medical procedures are used?
What are the new reproductive technologies?
How do NRTs highlight the culturally mediated forms of kinship?

Why do people in different cultures want children?
Why do various cultures want biogenetically related children?

Pande:
- note emphasis on inequality and on kinship and childbearing as work; she frequently uses Marxist terminology
- What is surrogacy?
    - how do traditional and gestational surrogacy work?
        - Surrogacy in Canada, the view from one service: http://www.surrogacy.ca/surrogacy-in-canada/surrogacy-in-canada.html
        International surrogacy and citizenship: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/publications-manuals/operational-bulletins-manuals/canadian-citizenship/admininistration/identity/who-parent-purposes-where-assisted-human-reproduction-including-surrogacy-arrangements-involved.html
- what is “kin work” (di Leonardo) and “kin labour” (Pande)?
    - how do these make kinship?
- how might surrogacy be commodified, and what steps do governments take (e.g. Canada) to prevent this?
    - what would be the implications of commodifying child bearing? Would commodified child bearing be ethical?
- how does surrogacy work in this case?
    - what do the surrogate mothers have to do?
    - how do they understand their role?
    - how do the intended mothers understand their role?
- what is the desired relationship between surrogate and intended mother for the surrogate? What does the intended mother want the relationship to be, in most cases?


Inhorn: a slightly different approach, deriving from Goffman and Ablon
- a focus on social stigma, discrediting and discreditable conditions
- why is male infertility stigmatized in Lebanon and Egypt?
- why does this make couples seek treatment but feel shameful about it?
- what are the probable reasons for high levels of male infertility in the Middle East?
- which NRTs are acceptable and which are not to Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims of this region?
    - why?
    - what are the consequences for marriage in some cases of the possibility of ICSI?

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