Suchergebnisse

This case discusses the ethnographic challenges that the increased prominence of online interactions represents. Sociologists need to reflect on the nature of online forums and adjust their methodology if they want to understand new forms of social interactions. In my own work, I took up this challenge by exploring an online surrogacy support and information forum, www.surromomonline.com, as my fieldsite. I spent a decade immersed in this online world, reading discussion threads on numerous sub-forums in which women discussed a wide range of topics, such as relationship with their couple, contract negotiations, embryo transfer practices, termination of pregnancy, and even non-surrogacy issues, including family, work, news, and more. I also contacted surrogates by posting on the forum; their responses helped me understand www.surromomonline.com discussions and stances more accurately. I found that understanding the history and context of online discussions is important for comprehending the meanings people create together. Treating discussion threads, rather than individual posts, as the unit of analysis helps provide context for understanding data from online forums. Much as in physical life, meanings inform actions, and people never construct meanings alone. Long-term immersion in www.surromomonline.com enabled me to see change over time; surrogates modified and renegotiated previous conceptualizations and notions. Looking for negative cases is just as important in analyzing online data as it is in any other ethnographic work. This case exemplifies the implementation of the interactionist insight that feelings, practices, and meanings are formulated collectively in interactions even in the context of online forums.

Zsuzsa Berend presents a methodologically innovative ethnography of SurroMomsOnline.com, the largest surrogacy support website in the United States. Surrogates' views emerge from the stories, debates, and discussions that unfold online. The Online World of Surrogacy documents these collective meaning-making practices and explores their practical, emotional, and moral implications. In doing so, the book works through themes of interest across the social sciences, including definitions of parenthood, the symbolic role of money, reproductive loss, altruism, and the moral valuation of relationships

ABSTRACTIn this article, I explore surrogates' rich, diverse, and collective negotiations of relatedness and relationships on the largest U.S. surrogacy support website. Surrogates reconfigure existing kinship understandings and maintain that intent and love are firmer bases of parenthood than biogenetic connection. Increasing use of donor gametes contributes to the emphasis on desire to be parents. In gestational surrogacy, genetic relatedness between the child and the intended parents strengthens claim to parenthood but lack thereof does not call parenthood into question. Traditional surrogates' biogenetic connection to the child they carry is never considered to be grounds for claims to motherhood. Surrogates and intended parents "do kinship" and consider the actions of kinship more consequential that its biological facts. In their accounts, desire for children is "natural" and the choice to raise them is understood as morally positive. Genetic facts, however, are understood as morally neutral. Surrogates and intended parents contend that surrogate babies belong to the parents who want them. Surrogates' emphasis on chosen solidarity works to diminish the importance of genetic relatedness and helps them uphold the traditional boundaries of their own nuclear family and that of the intended parents. [kinship, assisted reproduction, U.S. surrogacy, family]

Abstract The article explores the nature and symbolism of money within familial relationships and the effect of close personal ties on money use in the example of the Alcott family. The historical moment is interesting precisely because many of the oppositions between money and sentiment, intimate and financial bonds were newly formulated in the 19th century. The Alcott family is an interesting case study because they articulated and documented both cultural understandings and actual practices concerning work, money, and emotions. Georg Simmel, Viviana Zelizer, and James Carrier's work inform the theoretical framework for this project.

This paper explores how surrogates negotiate the meaning of familial belonging and family identity when they discuss surrogacy with their husband, children, and other relatives. We suggest that surrogacy necessitates reflexive explication of what a family is and how this family is implicated in surrogacy. Our comparative study analyzes ethnographic data on Israeli and US surrogates to illuminate key similarities in surrogates' strategies vis-a-vis their husband and children, pointing to the importance of daily family practices in how people understand family belonging. First, we map out the ways surrogates engage their husbands in order to gain their support and protect their nuclear family unit before entering the process. Next, we look at how surrogates explain surrogacy to their children in efforts to clarify siblingship and the boundaries between the two families, and to make surrogacy into an educational family project. We analyze the metaphors and rituals in surrogates' family-bounding practices.

This paper is a partial transcription of a long conversation between the sociologist Zsuzsa Berend (University of California, Los Angeles) and the anthropologist Corinna Sabrina Guerzoni (Western Fertility Institute, Los Angeles) on US surrogacy. It is the outcome of an interview occurred on 6th October 2017 in Los Angeles, transcribed and revised by both the authors. The text analyzes some fundamental concepts that Berend explored in her book The Online World of Surrogacy (2016) and offers some food for thought to read the US commercial surrogacy with other lenses. Berend's study offers an in-depth analysis of compensated surrogacy in the US and unique perspective for a better understanding of the experiences and points of view of the women directly involved in this assisted reproductive practice.