Just what the Doctor Ordered: Markets and Morality in Russian, Ukrainian and Kazakh Reproductive Surrogacy Markets (Works in Progress Meeting)

Join us for a Works in Progress session with Alya Guseva, Associate Professor of Sociology at Boston University.

Abstract: Based on more than 40 in-depth interviews with key surrogacy experts in Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan, I examine moral framing of commercial surrogacy in the post-Soviet region. In contrast to a familiar fault line between markets and intimacy, on the one side surrogacy is framed as a selfless gift and “the labor of love” and on the other as a commodified nightmare with women’s reproductive bodies and babies for sale, post-Soviet surrogacy is framed as “nothing but” a medical treatment, provided to “deserving” patients based on a limited set of medical diagnoses of infertility. Based on more than 40 in-depth interviews with key surrogacy experts in Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan, I examine moral framing of commercial surrogacy in the post-Soviet region. In contrast to a familiar fault line between markets and intimacy, on the one side surrogacy is framed as a selfless gift and “the labor of love” and on the other as a commodified nightmare with women’s reproductive bodies and babies for sale, post-Soviet surrogacy is framed as “nothing but” a medical treatment, provided to “deserving” patients based on a limited set of medical diagnoses of infertility. This approach dismisses the intimacy-market controversy altogether, and redeems surrogacy as a legitimate medical help. Surrogacy is further legitimized by the suffering of the infertile on their journey to become parents, and by power of the medical profession to “name and frame.” This approach dismisses the intimacy-market controversy altogether, and redeems surrogacy as a legitimate medical help. Surrogacy is further legitimized by the suffering of the infertile on their journey to become parents, and by power of the medical profession to “name and frame.” Unlike other surrogacy markets, post-Soviet region surrogacy has established particularly strong medical-professional “conceptions of control” -- shared “understanding that structure perceptions of how a market works” (Fligstein 1996), which double as a legitimizing force. The work fills an important empirical gap as the post-Soviet surrogacy has received scant attention. It builds on economic and medical sociology literature (specifically, institutional and cultural approaches to markets, markets and morality, medicalization as well as professions), and argues that medicalization of practices can “dial down” moral controversies and make way to economic exchange.

Open to Boston University faculty, graduate students, and visiting researchers. RSVP to edamrien@bu.edu