Emotions Matter: The lived experiences of reproductive laborers in India

Keywords: Surrogacy; Reproductive labor; Emotions
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Tuesday
Session Start / End Time: 3/1/2022 08:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 3/1/2022 09:20 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 64

Abstract

The fertility clinics in India create a controlled and surveilled environment in which personal emotions and experiences of the women working as surrogate mothers are contained. Every aspect of the reproductive laborers’ lives is subjected to surveillance ensuring ‘positive outcomes’ of surrogacy. Such aspects include their sexual behaviour, emotional attachment with the babies to be born, and their commitment to adhering to the rules and regulations set by the fertility clinic. The behaviour and emotions of the reproductive laborers are actively engineered for capitalist market profits. This paper narrates the stories of these women who oscillate between the two categories of a nurturing mother and a docile worker. The reproductive laborers in my research acknowledge that their journeys are quite a roller coaster ride of emotions. While some women find it difficult to bear the separation from the surrogate babies; there are other women who work hard to balance their feelings of emotional detachment to the babies they carry and yet, portray a picture of love for the unborn children, in order to fit in the acceptable image of a ‘good mother’. Cutting across feelings of love, loss, grief, non-attachment, and sisterhood, the paper captures the range of emotions as experienced and expressed by the reproductive laborers. I identify how emotions work in the everyday lives of the reproductive laborers in the spaces of the surrogate housing facility in India.