Content uploaded by Daisy Deomampo
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Daisy Deomampo on Mar 25, 2016
Content may be subject to copyright.
Transnational Surrogacy in India: Interrogating Power and Women’s
Agency
Daisy Deomampo
Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, Volume 34, Number 3, 2013,
pp. 167-188 (Article)
Published by University of Nebraska Press
For additional information about this article
Access provided by Fordham University Library (13 Dec 2013 10:42 GMT)
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/fro/summary/v034/34.3.deomampo.html
Deomampo: Transnational Surrogacy in India
Transnational Surrogacy in India
Interrogating Power and Women’s Agency
On a sweltering summer day in I sat in a restaurant on the outskirts of
Mumbai, India, with Nishi, a young woman preparing to become a surrogate
mother for a foreign couple outside of India. ough not yet pregnant, Nishi
was hoping to enter the world of transnational surrogacy, in which would- be
parents from around the world travel to India to make babies through in vitro
fertilization (), egg donation, and gestational surrogacy. India made com-
mercial surrogacy legal a decade ago in an e ort to boost the medical tourism
industry; since then hundreds of women like Nishi have found their way into
this global market, transacting their bodies, body parts, and reproductive la-
bor in exchange for the monetary payment they hope will ease their families’
nancial burdens.
Nishi told me of how she had separated from her husband four years earlier;
separation and divorce remain unusual in India, particularly among working-
class women like Nishi, but several women in my study had le their husbands,
some of whom had been abusive. Indeed, as one fertility doctor I interviewed
explained, “You’d be surprised at the number of separations and divorces that
are happening [among lower- class women].... A er we started doing surro-
gacy in the past three years, we realized that about – percent of them are
separated.” is doctor asserted that most of these women walk out of their
marriages because of abuse and alcoholism; Nishi’s case proved typical.
Following her separation from her husband, Nishi struck up a friendship
with Nikhil, a young man from south India who managed an electronics shop
in Mumbai. As their friendship evolved into a romantic relationship, Nikhil
supported Nishi and her two daughters in times of need. Nishi shared that she
felt she also should support Nikhil, whom she planned to eventually marry.
When Nishi learned about surrogacy, she viewed it as a potential nancial
windfall for her and her family and began preparing for surrogacy without
telling Nikhil. When she told Nikhil of her surrogacy plans, he disapproved:
//. , .
“He is not agreeing to it. He says don’t do this; he thinks it is illegal. Yet I am
trying to convince him somehow and I am trying. I also told him that every-
thing has been done. I told him I have done the [embryo transfer] and I
cannot go back now. So, he is sitting quietly now, not saying anything.” In fact,
at the time of our interview Nishi had not yet undergone embryo transfer. She
was still in the preparatory phases: taking hormone injections and undergo-
ing tests and procedures to determine her viability as a candidate for surro-
gacy. Why did Nishi deceive Nikhil?
What are the strategies that Indian women contemplating surrogacy em-
ploy to negotiate and respond to the structural and social constraints they
face daily? How do women enact agency in their e orts to meet or secure
their self- de ned needs and desires, even as their e orts may maintain struc-
tures of inequality? And what are the consequences of such acts of agency,
particularly as they challenge cultural norms and expectations? is article
addresses these questions by tracing the complexities of agency, constraint,
and inequality in the lives of women who pursue surrogacy in India.
e views and experiences of women I spoke with resist reduction to sim-
plistic stereotypes and binary oppositions between agent and victim, rich
and poor, East and West; indeed, the more I learned about surrogacy in In-
dia throughout my eldwork, the more inadequate these notions became. I
contrast the stories of Nishi and her friend Antara, a surrogate agent, whose
personal narratives regarding surrogacy and the circumstances that motivated
them to become gestational surrogates buttress the point that the global sur-
rogacy industry re ects and reinforces a broader strati cation of reproduc-
tion. At the same time, however, their narratives reveal the complexities of
women’s lives and fend o the temptation to portray them as victims. is ar-
ticle shows how women indeed nd ways to resist dominant constructions of
surrogates as powerless victims. I argue that in expressing forms of resistance
and individual and collective agency, women nd ways to challenge everyday
gender norms and create new opportunities for themselves and their families,
albeit within larger structures of power.
However, such expressions of agency also depend on the particular roles
and relationships that women have within transnational structures of surro-
gacy. I contrast the experiences of women who work as surrogates with those
who occupy intermediary positions— particularly surrogate agents and care-
takers. Women who act as agents or caretakers o en share the same socio-
economic background as surrogates and egg donors; indeed, such women are
usually former surrogates or egg donors themselves. Yet they occupy distinct
subject positions, especially with respect to power and agency. Such interme-
diary roles reveal the peculiar contradictions entangled in transnational sur-
Deomampo: Transnational Surrogacy in India
rogacy and further complicate analyses of strati ed reproduction. As trans-
national inequalities breed the conditions for a thriving surrogacy industry
in India, global processes reproduce strati cation itself at local and commu-
nity levels, creating new categories of actors whose own agency depends on
limiting that of others. I contend that while women who act as intermediary
agents have increased access to power and opportunities that allow them to
boost their own social and nancial status, their positions simultaneously re-
inforce the ever more re ned hierarchies inherent in transnational surrogacy.
By revealing the diversity of ways that women enact agency, however limited,
through their experiences as surrogates or agent- caretakers, I highlight the
subtleties of intraclass social divisions transnational surrogacy engenders and
illustrate how women both exert power and are subject to it.
Nishi’s story is among several that de ed my expectations. While there are
reports of husbands or in- laws coercing women into surrogacy, women like
Nishi revealed how they asserted their own decisions about surrogacy, o en
in the face of the disagreement and disapproval of their husbands. is ar-
ticle foregrounds the experiences of surrogates on a local level, depicting rela-
tionships among surrogates and their doctors, families, and caretakers. At the
same time, however, it is important to locate these interactions within larger
global hierarchies. As sociologist Arlie Hochschild writes:
Person to person, family to family, the First World is linked to the ird
World through the food we eat, the clothes we wear, and the care we
receive. at Filipina nanny who cares for an American child leaves
her own children in the care of her mother and another nanny. In turn,
that nanny leaves her younger children in the care of an eldest daughter.
First World genetic parents pay a ird World woman to carry their em-
bryo. e surrogate’s husband cares for their older children. e worlds
of rich and poor are invisibly bound through chains of care.
Clearly, transnational ows of capital, technology, bodies, and reproductive
tissues signal how the global surrogacy industry rei es and reinforces global
inequities. In the words of anthropologist Rayna Rapp, “All of our lives are
not only globalized; they are strati ed as well.” Indeed, transnational surro-
gacy in India represents a prime example of strati ed reproduction, in which
“some categories of people are empowered to nurture and reproduce, while
others are disempowered.” As gestational surrogacy in India necessarily relies
on the reproductive labor and bodies of a variety of individuals, it also reveals
how strati ed reproduction becomes ever more complex, with increasing in-
traclass social divisions among surrogates and surrogate agents. is article
focuses on the experiences and aspirations of these women, highlighting the
//. , .
nuances of their everyday lives, as well as locating their positionalities in rela-
tion to local and global hierarchies.
e research described in this article is part of a larger study on reproduc-
tive travel in India, where I conducted thirteen months of ethnographic eld-
work between and . I draw on participant observation at varied sites
throughout Mumbai, including infertility clinics, hospitals, intended parents’
hotel or apartment accommodations, and surrogates’ homes. I conducted in-
depth interviews with thirty- ve Indian surrogates and egg donors, including
six agent- caretakers. In addition I conducted interviews with Indian doctors
and intended parents from around the world. Relying on the ethnographic
methods of anthropology, I also drew on feminist methodologies in order to,
in the words of Faye Harrison, “underscore the value of women’s voices, expe-
riences, and agency and the sociocultural and political- economic contexts in
which they are situated.”
e clinics included in this study were self- selected by head doctors and
sta who welcomed the presence of an American researcher. As Inhorn has
noted, eldwork in infertility clinics depends heavily on the goodwill of their
gatekeepers. us, I recruited participants in this study in several ways. Clinic
sta initially approached foreign clients as well as Indian women undergoing
surrogacy or egg donation to see if they wanted to participate in the study.
With the assistance of a translator I conducted interviews in Hindi or Marathi
with non- English- speaking surrogates, egg donors, and their families, follow-
ing an informed consent procedure; with surrogates who could speak some
English, I conducted interviews in a mix of English and Hindi or Marathi,
with my translator’s assistance. I primarily recruited the surrogate partici-
pants either at the clinic or through the snowball method and conducted in-
terviews either in the clinic or at their homes.
Social scientists have noted how assisted reproductive technology () has
brought increased freedom and opportunity for some people, making par-
enthood possible for infertile couples, single men and women, and gay and
lesbian couples through arti cial insemination, surrogacy, or . Concomi-
tantly, advances in reproductive technology have promoted and maintained
certain power relations, notions of gender, and particular constructions of
Deomampo: Transnational Surrogacy in India
the family. Some scholars, for example, argue that these technologies rees-
sentialize women by reinforcing traditional patriarchal roles and objectify-
ing women’s reproductive potential. Others reveal how instead of disrupting
the stereotypical family, s enable infertile couples to complete one, given
that many clinics accept only heterosexual married couples as clients, and
many physicians have been unwilling to assist single women, gay or lesbian
couples, welfare recipients, and other women they do not consider to be good
potential mothers.
More recently, with the globalization of s around the world, anthro-
pologists have turned their attention to the phenomenon of reproductive
tourism. A form of medical tourism, reproductive tourism refers to the trans-
national consumption of s. Such tourism centers on individuals who
seek a range of reproductive products and services. It includes people who
travel abroad to procure gametes (sperm and eggs) and embryos; contract
with surrogates; and obtain services such as , intracytoplasmic sperm in-
jection, arti cial insemination, sex selection, and diagnostic tools including
amniocentesis and preimplantation genetic diagnosis. Reproductive tourism,
too, involves the providers of these products and services to willing travel-
ers. Although tourism implies the travel of people from their home country
to an unfamiliar destination for leisure purposes, I take reproductive tourism
to include all forms of transnational interactions and consumption patterns
involved in assisted reproduction, including the cross- border movement of
bodily materials.
However, though reproductive tourism suggests a global demand for s,
assisted conception and related technologies are not evenly distributed across
the globe, and anthropologists have called attention to the structural and cul-
tural constraints that in uence how developing countries assimilate s.
While they tend to be concentrated in high- and middle- income nations,
variables besides economics, such as policy and religious and cultural values,
determine the number of fertility clinics or availability of services in a given
country.
Anthropologist Marcia Inhorn’s work on reproductive tourism in the Mid-
dle East sheds light on the global economy that enables rapid deployment of
s. Building on Arjun Appadurai’s theory of global “scapes,” Inhorn devel-
ops the concept of “reproscape,” which calls to mind a “distinct geography tra-
versed by global ows of reproductive actors, technologies and body parts.”
Indeed, Inhorn goes further to suggest that researchers might productively
replace Appadurai’s nongendered language of “scapes” with the notion of “re-
pro ows,” which bespeak global movements of reproductive technologies de-
veloped in one country that then “ ow” to others through commercial means;
//. , .
of embryos “ owing” from one country to another with the assistance of em-
bryo couriers; of women and men “ owing” across national borders in pursuit
of reproductive technologies; and nally, of surrogates and egg donors who
“ ow” and are “ own” to other countries.
Surprisingly little research, however, discusses the experiences of women
involved in surrogacy, though an emerging scholarship explores commercial
surrogacy in India. Alongside Helena Ragoné’s study of surrogacy agencies in
the United States and Elly Teman’s work on surrogacy in Israel, which demon-
strate how women involved in surrogacy rely on narratives of “gi - giving” to
downplay the commercial nature of their relationship with one another, Am-
rita Pande and Kalindi Vora make a major intervention into theorizing trans-
national surrogacy in India. ese scholars examine the sociocultural im-
plications of surrogacy among women who live in “surrogacy hostels,” where
they remain separated from their families and communities throughout the
course of their pregnancies.
As Pande has argued, fertility clinics and surrogacy hostels produce
the “perfect” surrogate. While a disciplinary project that works to create a
“mother- worker subject” brings women together, they simultaneously resist
being reduced to their roles as disposable and docile workers. ese resis-
tances, however, o en reinforce the primary identity of these women as self-
less mothers rather than as wage- earning workers. While Pande has focused
on the production of a mother- worker and how the hostel becomes a space
for resistance and networking among surrogate “sisters,” my study of surro-
gacy in Mumbai highlights intrafamily dynamics and sheds light on the ways
that women navigate their changing relationships with husbands, children,
extended family, and neighbors. I also contribute to the recent scholarship
on surrogacy by critically examining the intermediary positions of surrogate
agents, whose roles to date have been relatively understudied, revealing addi-
tional aspects of surrogates’ agency and structural constraint.
In attending to these experiences of women involved in surrogacy, so, too,
must scholars acknowledge their power and agency in the context of con-
strained opportunities. Building on Foucault’s argument that power is every-
where, this work joins anthropological scholarship focused on revealing in-
stances of agency and resistance among the relatively powerless. In contrast
to popular media images of helpless women in need of assistance, my research
shows the subtle and explicit ways in which women express resistance and
agency within the context of structural factors that limit opportunities.
Transnational surrogacy in India, as elsewhere, re ects many of these con-
cerns with power and inequality and reveals how disparities in gender, race,
class, and nation place some women’s reproductive projects above others’.
Deomampo: Transnational Surrogacy in India
Certainly, surrogacy occurs in a highly uneven global “reproscape” that of-
fers a powerful exemplar of strati ed reproduction. Yet, in drawing attention
to the uneven terrain beneath transnational surrogacy, I want to avoid and
go beyond depictions of women who become surrogates as powerless victims
in need of aid. As Chandra Mohanty has eloquently argued, viewing ird
World women primarily as victims creates a pattern of domination— a form of
discursive colonization— that measures progress against the yardstick of west-
ern women. In most popular media accounts of surrogacy in India expres-
sions such as “womb for rent” merge seamlessly with images of the “poorest of
the poor” who readily sign up to become surrogates. Yet such homogenous
images of ird World women who are helpless, oppressed, and thus in need
of rescue prede nes women as victims and prematurely rules out any pos-
sibility of their being otherwise. Indian surrogates may be, or may become,
victims in the unequal relationships formed between surrogate and doctor or
intended parent; nonetheless, I contend that reliance on the image of the op-
pressed surrogate neglects the local voices and perspectives long sought by
ethnographers and feminists.
’ :
Nishi was twenty- seven years old when we met in Mumbai in April . She
had been married at nineteen in what she called, speaking to me in English,
a “love- cum- arranged marriage”; as the story goes, Nishi’s husband was “in
love with her from afar,” though Nishi did not reciprocate his feelings at rst.
His mother approached Nishi’s family with a proposal for marriage, and while
Nishi’s mother believed that the family was an appropriate match at the time,
Nishi says her mother has come to agree with her that he is “crazy” and has
a drinking problem. Following marriage, Nishi quickly had her rst child at
twenty; she now has two school- age daughters born a year apart. Nishi and
her husband are now separated, and she has led a case for divorce. Since
then she has endeavored to distance herself from her parents and their bur-
densome nancial problems, while working to support herself and her two
daughters independently.
Nishi’s story re ects the contradictions inherent in transnational surrogacy,
which relies on the reproductive potential of bodies that have long been sub-
jected to patriarchy and population- control programs. Nishi’s rst pregnancy
ended in miscarriage before she had her rst and second daughters in rapid
succession. Her fourth pregnancy ended with an abortion. Nishi would have
preferred a longer gap between the two daughters, but her husband “wasn’t
listening” and desired a son. A er her abortion Nishi knew she did not want
//. , .
any more children and underwent tubal ligation (which prevents conception
through sex but not pregnancy through ), a common sterilization strategy
among my respondents. More than a few women mentioned to me the neces-
sity of having the operation, in de ance of husbands who demanded that their
wives produce a son. ese decisions complicate debates around reproductive
rights and justice: while women like Nishi undergo operations that limit their
reproductive potential for their own families, they later become pregnant for
other families. Locating Nishi’s story within the speci city of India, as well as on
a global scale, reveals the unique contours of strati ed reproduction in transna-
tional surrogacy. On the one hand India marks lower- class women like Nishi as
inferior to middle- class women it links with Indian national identity, and the
state has historically sought to limit the reproduction of lower- class women.
Yet its culture encourages their reproductive potential when it produces chil-
dren of “worthy” parents, that is, foreign nationals and upper- class Indians.
Nishi was similar to many of the women I interviewed, with respect to class
and social status, household income, and family histories of con ict and tur-
moil (in Nishi’s case she struggled to provide for two daughters as a single
mother separated from an alcoholic husband, while also shouldering the -
nancial debts of her parents). However, unlike most of the women I inter-
viewed, Nishi spoke English. She was con dent, articulate, and inquisitive,
and she made a strong rst impression. Yet Nishi’s education had been brief,
and she attended a school in which Marathi was the primary language of
instruction. In a conversation with her friend Antara, Nishi lamented the
structural constraints that limited her educational aspirations:
: Actually I wanted to become a doctor but my father told me he
couldn’t a ord it.
: You can become one now.
: No, it is fi nancially very diffi cult. I’ll have to attend the classes,
which is not possible for me. I can study hard but can’t attend the classes.
I studied very hard in the seventh standard and got fi rst class but I had to
give up school after that [due to fi nancial constraints].
Nishi’s seventh- grade education allowed her to secure a job at a large tele-
com company, where she earned a monthly salary of . Her English-
language skills came from this job.
Nishi revealed a profound curiosity about the surrogacy process and
the risks involved, both physical and legal, particularly in comparison with
many women who felt unable to pose questions to their doctors about any
aspects of the surrogacy process. Describing how she came to accept surro-
gacy, Nishi relates:
Deomampo: Transnational Surrogacy in India
My friend Shanti told me about the idea of [embryo transfer] and I
was surprised. By that time I was aware about the test tube baby, but this
was new for me. I thought about it for one month. en I had a quarrel
with my brother.... at was the decisive moment for me.
Nishi had been staying with her brother; she was hoping that surrogacy would
o er the means to move out.
I called Shanti and told her that I’m ready for the process. A er visit-
ing the hospital, I went to an Internet café and searched for information
about surrogacy to prepare myself for the process. Most importantly,
I’m earning a substantial amount for my kids. In India we rarely get the
chance to earn this much at one go.
In contrast to many women Nishi took steps to educate herself about surro-
gacy. She was the only woman I interviewed who mentioned conducting In-
ternet research in order to learn more about the risks involved in surrogacy.
Yet once Nishi began the surrogacy process, her relationship with Shanti
soured. Shanti herself had wanted to become a surrogate; she had under-
gone embryo transfer three times, with no success. She decided to become an
agent herself, and her discussions with Nishi were in her mind related to that.
A er accompanying Nishi to the doctor, where she underwent blood tests
and ultrasound scans, Shanti demanded a commission— approximately ,
which would be deducted from Nishi’s payment of at the time of embryo
transfer— for introducing Nishi to her doctor. Nishi’s rst reaction, as she sat
in the recovery room following her initial blood tests and scans, was, “Well,
if she hadn’t told me about this, then how would I have known? I would have
had no idea about this.” But she later balked at the idea of paying Shanti out
of her own earnings. Nishi explained, “She is such a careless agent. I was dy-
ing here in the rst two months [of pregnancy] with vomiting and she didn’t
come at all. at’s not done.”
Nishi’s comments suggest the impact of agents’ intermediary positions on
surrogate experiences, as well as the subtle ways in which social relationships
change in the context of surrogacy. As Shanti’s focus moved toward becom-
ing an agent- caretaker, she alienated Nishi. As I will discuss further in the
following section, the agent- caretaker plays a large role in surrogate women’s
experiences, in ways that both enhance and constrain surrogates’ opportuni-
ties. In Nishi’s case, though she tried to learn about the practical details of
surrogacy, she still found herself in a vulnerable position as a surrogate, as her
agent demanded payment and neglected to care for her in the early months of
her pregnancy.
//. , .
Nearly all of the surrogates with whom I spoke reported a lack of trans-
parency and power in negotiating contracts. is process perhaps illustrated
more than any other aspect of their experience the social and structural in-
equalities that both propel them into the surrogacy industry and circumscribe
their experiences within it. For Nishi, like most surrogates, the experience of
signing the contract was confusing and mysterious, and despite her assertive
nature Nishi could not advocate on her own behalf:
: Can you tell me about the contract process?
: The contract was in two copies; one is original and other was
Xerox.
: Did you ask for a copy for yourself?
: No, actually I wanted one copy for myself, but I didn’t dare to
ask for one. In fact I don’t prefer to sign any contract without knowing it in
detail but . . . one page was also blank which I signed and also the amount
was not fi lled in. And most importantly she didn’t give us a chance to read
the agreement. She was turning the pages very fast. If she had let me read
the document, I would have read it quickly because I can read English and
I can read fast.
While Nishi reported these objections to me, she said she could not speak up
in front of the doctor and lawyer who were present when she signed. Indeed,
this came up again and again in interviews: surrogates would not confront
doctors and lawyers on crucial issues related to their payment for fear of los-
ing their contract. ey said that doctors o en hinted at an ample supply of
women ready and willing to take their place as surrogates.
ese obstacles notwithstanding, Nishi endeavored to express subtle and
explicit forms of agency within these larger structures of power, by taking
steps to read and conduct research and independently making her own deci-
sions about surrogacy. Yet despite her own assertiveness and self- education
Nishi’s possibilities for agency remained constrained due to her position in
relation to doctors, agents, and other actors involved in transnational surro-
gacy. In contrast the story of Antara, who had socioeconomic status similar to
Nishi’s but worked as an agent, reveals a distinct set of possibilities for agency
and power.
: -
My research took me into the homes and lives of various surrogates, egg
donors, and caretakers in Mumbai, and as I navigated the anthropologist-
informant relationship with each, perhaps the person I am most indebted to
Deomampo: Transnational Surrogacy in India
is Antara. ough other agents participated in my study, I met with Antara
more than any other throughout my research. Antara is outspoken and bright
and welcomed me into her home numerous times; a superb host, she unfail-
ingly ensured I was properly fed before “getting to work.” She introduced me
to the many women she looked a er in her role as surrogate agent- caretaker,
and I saw how strong a force she was in their lives.
While her husband, Rahul, had the equivalent of a seventh- grade educa-
tion, Antara had been educated until the tenth grade, higher than many of
the women I met during my research. In general the surrogates and egg do-
nors who participated in my study had low rates of access to education; many
stopped school by seventh grade. Yet my study also included a number who
had studied up to tenth or sometimes twel h grade, as well as some currently
pursuing studies in nursing or cosmetology. Further, while many participants
described nancial instability, few described themselves as “desperate” for
the money. Several depicted a solidly middle- class lifestyle. Indeed, despite
the nancial hardships described by many of the women I interviewed, they
tended not to be the “poorest of the poor” and demonstrated a range of skills
that allowed them to capitalize on and negotiate their social positions, re ect-
ing the uniqueness of women who participate in the surrogacy industry.
Antara and Rahul had two children, a een- year- old daughter and a
thirteen- year- old son, with whom I enjoyed chatting in English, playing games,
and discussing books and recent movies. Rahul worked for a private company
laying roads; for this work he earned a monthly wage of , but since such
seasonal work is irregular, the family o en found themselves struggling to get
by. When we rst met, Antara was thirty- six years old and described herself as
a “housewife”; however, over the months I came to know her and her family, I
watched as Antara’s work as an agent- caretaker grew into a job that took her all
over the city, into women’s homes, doctor’s clinics, and hospitals.
Antara’s introduction to the surrogacy industry took place several years
prior to our rst meeting in . When her sister- in- law, Sumita, told her
about surrogacy as an income opportunity, Antara initially thought, “What
are you talking about? I thought it was probably wrong, but then I realized
that I’ve had my two children. I’m donating something.” Rahul, however, did
not support the idea, and Antara called on her elder sister and sister- in- law to
convince him. Confronted by these determined women of the family, saying,
“Look at your living conditions; you need something better,” Rahul eventually
agreed. Indeed, many women told me similar stories of needing to persuade
their husbands to allow them to become surrogates, contradicting some con-
cerns that Indian women were being forced into surrogacy by their husbands
against their will.
//. , .
Antara became pregnant and gave birth to a boy via cesarean section.
For this work she earned around ,, which, in Antara’s words, “is not
enough.” Antara and Rahul put away some of the money for their daughter
and used the rest to repair her family’s home in the village. In Mumbai An-
tara’s family continued to live in a rented home.
In she came to work as an agent- caretaker for Dr. Desai, who origi-
nally facilitated Antara’s surrogacy. In her role as agent Antara would bring
women interested in egg donation or surrogacy to Dr. Desai, for which she
would receive a commission of to . Antara’s role as an agent, however,
frequently overlapped with her work as a “caretaker”; charged with everything
from accompanying surrogates to the hospital for medical procedures, to en-
suring surrogates receive their medications, caretakers can receive between
and for their work throughout the duration of a surrogate preg-
nancy. Initially, Antara would roam around her community and speak with
women to see who might be interested in egg donation or surrogacy. Even-
tually, however, as her reputation as a caretaker spread, I observed a signi -
cant boost to Antara’s work. By the end of my eldwork all of Antara’s “pa-
tients” would come to her through word of mouth, and most of the women
she works with are distant relatives or neighbors in her community.
Recruiting agents occupy a unique dual position as advocates for their
“patients,” as Antara referred to the surrogates and egg donors she cared for,
and as entrepreneurs of sorts, who negotiate their own wages with doctors
and patients on a daily basis. As I learned from Antara about her perspec-
tives and experiences with the surrogacy industry in Mumbai, I found that
the absence of any laws regulating surrogacy resulted in enormous variabil-
ity in payment and commercial surrogacy practices. Antara rarely collected
payments directly from her patients. Surrogacy contracts with intended par-
ents typically include a clause that covers recruitment fees; thus the doctors
themselves would distribute agents’ fees a er receiving payment from the in-
tended parents.
roughout the months that I met with Antara, I observed how she came
to identify more and more as “agent” rather than housewife, and I noted her
strength and con dence in this role many times. She typically had between
four and seven patients; at her busiest Antara could be responsible for up to
nine or ten patients at varying stages of egg donation and surrogate pregnancy.
Antara viewed her work as a full- time job and conscientiously ful lled her
duties; it was not uncommon for her to be out from early morning to late eve-
ning, and she meticulously took notes and kept track of all her patients’ medi-
cations, payments, and doctor’s visits. Responsible for dispensing medications
Deomampo: Transnational Surrogacy in India
and administering hormone injections, Antara claimed, “I’m also a doctor by
practice; I don’t have a degree so you can consider me ‘half- doctor’!” In addi-
tion Antara grew close to her patients on a personal and social level, and on
more than one occasion I witnessed Antara serve as a mediator and advisor
for women and their families, o ering advice on how to deal with an abusive
husband or mediating between dueling sisters. As Nishi told me, “Antara goes
all the way in helping patients with their problems. She has earned the right to
ask for money as an agent.”
During my eldwork I noted how Antara’s nancial situation changed
over the course of the year, due largely to her work as an agent. When we rst
met, she and her family were renting a small, cramped, one- room at; several
months later they moved to a more spacious, airy home. She was later able to
purchase a refrigerator (with a lock to secure the medications she stored for
surrogates and egg donors), as well as a steel cupboard, tangible markers of
upwardly mobile class status. Antara and Rahul also saved enough money to
send both of their children to college, so that they could receive the education
that neither Antara nor Rahul could achieve. ese signi cant details reveal
the impact of Antara’s work as an agent; I observed few surrogates achieve
similar goals in their postsurrogacy lives.
It was not uncommon for Antara to confront angry or abusive husbands, in
ways not typically expected of Indian women. Following Antara’s experience
as a surrogate, her sister Asha, too, wanted an opportunity to become a surro-
gate and earn much- needed income for her family. While Asha’s husband was
fully informed about the surrogacy process and the procedures Asha would
undergo in order to become pregnant, he nonetheless became angry, insecure,
and jealous, harassing Antara and her family following a misunderstanding.
Like other surrogates in the program Asha was admitted to the hospital for
twelve days a er the embryo transfer. Asha’s husband visited her in the hos-
pital, and Antara thought he had been made uncomfortable by the hospital’s
policy that he couldn’t go into her room, for the privacy of others, but had to
see his wife in a more public visiting room. He suspected he was actually be-
ing barred because Asha was committing adultery. Antara said:
A er that we had so much ghting in the house! ...He said if something
goes wrong I will throw both of you out of the house. He just wouldn’t
listen. He said, “My wife would not even go to the shop by herself and
all of you took her so far away.” I waited until morning when he sobered
up. I said to him, “How did she get so far away? Didn’t she ask you? And
how dare you use such words about me?” I said if you say this ever again
to her and if you so much as touch her to harm her, you watch it.
//. , .
I asked, “You threatened him?” Antara replied:
Yes, I told him not to be a bully. I’m good with those who are good to me
but bad to those who are bad to me. is is not wrong. ere is nothing
wrong in this work. If there was, would I have helped my own sister to
do it? en he started apologizing. He said, “Forget it, I will never say
anything about it again.” en he said, “Please don’t tell her I spoke like
that.” But I told her [Asha]. If he could speak to us like that, he would
have said things to her too. So I told her this is the way your husband
spoke to us. en she must have confronted him. She is also a very
strong woman. And now, he’s quiet.
Antara navigated threats and assertions of power in her family. e sudden
increase in Asha’s earning potential as a surrogate prompted Asha’s husband
to react strongly to the subtle shi in the balance of power in their relation-
ship. I encountered several women who negotiated tense relationships with
husbands who were uncomfortable with the signi cant incomes their wives
earned as surrogates. Yet, while Antara acknowledged the right of Asha’s hus-
band to have the nal say in her embodied a airs, saying, “How did she get
so far away? Didn’t she ask you?” she simultaneously resisted her brother-
in- law’s threats and called on Asha, too, to confront her husband, signaling
subtle and complex expressions of power and agency within the household.
While Pande’s work on surrogacy in India sheds light on how women view
their husband’s role in surrogacy, o en deemphasizing their husband’s con-
tribution and joking about their emasculation, she conducted her research
mainly with women who lived separately from their husbands, in “surrogacy
hostels” with other surrogate mothers. In contrast my study provides valu-
able insights into the impact of surrogacy within the households of surrogate
women themselves, revealing the complexities and consequences of female
agency as women collide with gendered cultural expectations of female sub-
missiveness and dependency.
In another instance Antara explained to me how she banded with other
agents to demand equal payments for their patients. As Antara described the
monthly payment plan for Dr. Desai, one of the several doctors she worked
with, she noted how surrogates were to receive approximately for monthly
expenditures, in addition to monthly payments of to cover their rent and
housing (these payments would be deducted from the total salary of ,
that Antara’s surrogates earn for their reproductive labor). Yet sometimes Dr.
Desai would give to some patients and to others. When Antara and
her fellow agents realized this, Antara explained, in an account that called to
mind the e orts of labor organizers or activists, “All the agents came together
Deomampo: Transnational Surrogacy in India
and forced her to give equal payments to everybody. So now everyone is get-
ting as allowance for other expenses.”
Yet Antara’s role as patient advocate sometimes clashed with her entrepre-
neurial self, revealing the nuanced ways in which agents must negotiate the
two positionalities. Antara’s work as an agent was o en tenuous and insecure,
and she told me of how she coordinated with fellow agents to approach Dr.
Desai when their own payments were decreasing:
: Last month all us agents, around twenty- ve, conducted a
meeting with her and we confronted her about her decreased payments to
us.... She is looking to reduce costs as much as she can, and she is deduct-
ing from the agent’s accounts. ings like injections, traveling from home
to the hospitals for di erent sonographies used to be paid; these are no lon-
ger paid nowadays. We demanded the expenses from her.
: Did she give you what you asked for, in the end?
: No, she gave us her notebook to write down the demands.
And there is the problem of patients becoming agents. If a patient is bring-
ing someone else as a patient, she makes her an agent, resulting in a rising
number of agents. It creates problems for us, and we can’t pressure her for
more money. We have asked her not to appoint new agents anymore.
: Do you know all the agents?
: Yes, I know most of them. But when a patient becomes an
agent it’s diffi cult to keep track of the agents, as it’s diffi cult to differentiate
between patient and agent.
While Antara and her fellow agents demanded higher pay and transparent
pay scales, they also raised issue with the doctor’s tendency to favor certain
agents and patients over others. At the same time, however, their objections
stemmed from the fact that patients who sought to become agents challenged
their positionality in the hierarchy among doctors, agents, and patient. In
seeking to preserve their own power and positionality, Antara and her fellow
agents aimed to limit the power of their patients to become agents themselves.
Ultimately, however, Dr. Desai did not address any of the agents’ demands,
and with limited opportunities to nd alternate forms of income, Antara con-
tinues to work for her as an agent- caretaker.
I was surprised, however, when one day Antara presented me with several
pages of computer printouts. With little knowledge of English, and having few
opportunities to do research or access the Internet, Antara had approached a
local vendor— the person who helped her secure identi cation cards for her
patients— with a request to research payments for surrogates. When I asked
why she had collected this information, Antara replied:
//. , .
: I wanted to know the actual payment to a surrogate from the
client [intended parents]. If I know the actual payment, it will help me to
make the process with patients more transparent, which eventually helps
me to reach more women.
: What are you going to do with this information?
: I’m not sure yet, but if we contact the clients directly, it will be
more benefi cial for everyone.
: Is this possible?
: Why not? There are a lot of people who have asked me to ap-
proach the clients.
Displaying a canny sense of entrepreneurship, Antara imagined that she might
eventually be able to reach parents- clients directly, avoiding third parties such
as Dr. Desai and increasing nancial returns for herself and her patients.
Yet Antara also understood that particular social and structural factors cir-
cumscribed the range of possibilities available for women like her to negotiate
their own livelihoods. When I asked her whether surrogates should be able to
meet the future parents of the child they were carrying, Antara replied:
It should be absolutely acceptable, but the main problem is being capable
of having a dialogue with them. e language barrier hampers those who
really want to communicate with their couple. Couples from abroad usu-
ally speak their own language, and it is di cult for many illiterate women
to respond. ese women are really uneducated. In my sister’s case the
couple visited her so many times and really wanted to communicate with
her, but she didn’t utter a word. If a smart and educated surrogate had
been there, she would have asked them about the details of the actual
payment and other things. But here the patients are totally dependent on
the doctor. So any added gi s or payment that might have been given by
the client but did not reach its destination cannot be tracked. In another
case, Anu’s case, the client never showed the courtesy of greeting us or
giving good wishes to her a er she delivered twins for them and went
through caesarean. ey just paid their amount and took the kids away.
Surrogates really feel bad a er being treated in this way. ey are not
asking you for something extra, and they are also aware that you are the
original parents of the kids. ere is no harm in showing some human-
ity, but they didn’t even look at her once.
As Antara’s comments reveal, lack of education and lower social status in rela-
tion to the doctors and commissioning parents largely shape surrogates’ expe-
riences. Indeed, while Antara acknowledges the challenges language barriers
Deomampo: Transnational Surrogacy in India
between surrogates and intended parents pose, her comments illustrate that
the factors that limit access to resources and motivate women to become sur-
rogates (lack of education, low socioeconomic status) also restrict women’s
ability to confront intended parents and doctors and to ensure transparency
in surrogate arrangements. Indeed, Antara was acutely aware of the inequali-
ties at the heart of transnational surrogacy arrangements as she worked hard
to use her own constrained agency to provide opportunities for herself and
her family members.
Indian women involved in surrogacy take up a diverse set of roles and re-
sponsibilities, and in contrasting the relative positions of the surrogate and
the agent/caretaker, I have shown how these intermediary roles have resulted
in intraclass divisions that engender further strati cation among women. In
Antara’s case her experience as a surrogate facilitated her ascension to her role
as a sought- a er surrogate agent, and this role a orded her power and agency,
however constrained.
Others have brie y examined the relationships between surrogates and
agents, or “brokers,” as Pande has written. In her work Pande has shown
how surrogate hostels can represent a powerful site of resistance against bro-
kers; in her study surrogate women banded together and complained to their
doctor about the fact that they had to pay their broker from their own
earnings. Eventually, the doctor added a clause to her contracts stipulating
that commissioning parents would be responsible for broker payments.
Yet Pande’s study, located in a small town in the western state of Gujarat,
focuses on women who lived in a surrogate hostel for most of their preg-
nancies. Agent- caretakers played a more signi cant role in the lives of the
women I interviewed, who o en lived at home with their families and thus
had more power and involvement in surrogacy arrangements. ey chaper-
oned women to clinics, administered injections and medications, mediated
family quarrels, and disbursed payments. However, while Antara cared about
the lives of her “patients,” she also sought her own nancial future and well-
being. I found that incentives encouraged women in intermediary roles to
improve conditions and foster loyalty by their surrogates; at the same time
incentives prompted agents to protect their own relative positions of power
by constraining the agency of others.
Both Nishi and Antara expressed forms of resistance to the larger struc-
tural forces that constrained their own opportunities as working- class Indian
women. Yet their narratives reveal how their e orts at resistance actually rec-
//. , .
reated structural inequalities. ough Nishi sought to improve her own fami-
ly’s nancial future through surrogacy and took proactive steps to educate and
protect herself against the risks involved, she remained unable to negotiate key
aspects of her surrogacy contract. Antara, too, worked to increase payments
for her surrogates, yet her negotiations of power as an agent- caretaker did not
represent interventions against structural processes. Rather, her actions inten-
si ed and recreated hierarchies among working- class women involved in sur-
rogacy. As Rhacel Parreñas has argued in her discussion of migrant Filipina
domestic workers’ resistance to power, this is the “bind of agency” that Judith
Butler articulates. Because the social processes from which agency emerges
limits it, resistance, as it recuperates power, does not necessarily challenge
structural inequalities. In the case of transnational surrogacy I argue that the
intermediary position of agent- caretaker further reinforces these inequalities.
is article o ers a critical examination of transnational surrogacy, with a
focus on the views and experiences of the women without whom gestational
surrogacy would be impossible, in order to reveal how women express agency
in the context of structural constraints and social inequalities. While focusing
on the everyday experiences of women involved in surrogacy, I have connected
their experiences within the larger global structures that foster reproductive
tourism. e narratives of Antara and Nishi illustrate the unique contours of
strati ed reproduction in the context of transnational surrogacy, while simul-
taneously challenging popular portrayals of surrogates as powerless victims.
While the system treats surrogates as though they are no more than wombs-
for- rent, their voices and hopes reveal complex histories of women and fami-
lies struggling to get into a global market on the best terms they can muster.
. I use the term agent- caretaker to describe women who take on the dual roles of
agent and caretaker: women who both recruit potential surrogates and egg donors for
fertility doctors and care for surrogates during the duration of their pregnancies. In
some cases distinct women may occupy these roles, but in many the agent and care-
taker are the same woman. While many of the women in this study are native speakers
of Marathi or Hindi, they use the English terms agent and caretaker in conversation to
describe these positions.
. For coercion see Fred De Sam Lazaro, “India’s New Baby Boom,” Newshour, Aug.
, , http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown///reporters- notebook- indias
- new- baby- boom.html.
. Arlie Russell Hochschild, “Childbirth at the Global Crossroads,” American Pros-
pect, , http://prospect.org/article/childbirth- global- crossroads- .
Deomampo: Transnational Surrogacy in India
. Rayna Rapp, “Reproductive Entanglements: Body, State and Culture in the Dys/
Regulation of Childbearing,” Social Research , no. (): – .
. Faye Ginsburg and Rayna Rapp, eds., Conceiving the New World Order: e
Global Politics of Reproduction (Berkeley: University of California Press, ), .
. Faye Harrison, “Feminist Methodology as a Tool for Ethnographic Inquiry on
Globalization,” in e Gender of Globalization: Women Navigating Cultural and Eco-
nomic Marginalities, ed. Nandini Gunewardena and Ann Kingsolver (Santa Fe: School
of Advanced Research Press, ).
. Marcia C. Inhorn, “Privacy, Privatization, and the Politics of Patronage: Ethno-
graphic Challenges to Penetrating the Secret World of Middle Eastern, Hospital- Based
in Vitro Fertilization,” Social Science and Medicine , no. (): – .
. Linda Layne, Transformative Motherhood: On Giving and Getting in a Consumer
Culture (New York: New York University Press, ); Laura Mamo, Queering Repro-
duction: Achieving Pregnancy in the Age of Technoscience (Durham: Duke University
Press, ); Helena Ragoné and France Widdance Twine, eds., Ideologies and Tech-
nologies of Motherhood: Race, Class, Sexuality, Nationalism (New York: Routledge,
).
. Barbara Katz Rothman, Recreating Motherhood (New York: Norton, ).
. Dorothy Roberts, Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction and the Meaning of
Liberty (New York: Pantheon Books, ).
. Reproductive tourism has increased apace over the past decade, and there is
a growing literature on transnational reproduction around the globe. See, e.g., Sven
Bergmann, “Fertility Tourism: Circumventive Routes at Enable Access to Repro-
ductive Technologies and Substances,” Signs , no. (): – ; Marcia C. In-
horn, “Globalization and Gametes: Reproductive ‘Tourism,’ Islamic Bioethics, and
Middle Eastern Modernity,” Anthropology and Medicine , no. (): – ;
Marcia C. Inhorn, “Diasporic Dreaming: Return Reproductive Tourism to the Mid-
dle East,” Reproductive BioMedicine Online , no. (): – ; Michal Nahman,
“Nodes of Desire: Romanian Egg Sellers, ‘Dignity’ and Feminist Alliances in Trans-
national Ova Exchanges,” European Journal of Women’s Studies , no. (): –
; Michal Nahman, “Reverse Tra c: Intersecting Inequalities in Human Egg Dona-
tion,” Reproductive BioMedicine Online , no. (): – ; Andrea Whittaker and
Amy Speier, “‘Cycling Overseas’: Care, Commodi cation, and Strati cation in Cross-
Border Reproductive Travel,” Medical Anthropology , no. (): – . ere are
also several special journal issues that focus on reproductive tourism: Zeynep B. Gür-
tin and Marcia C. Inhorn, “Introduction: Travelling for Conception and the Global
Assisted Reproduction Market,” Reproductive BioMedicine Online , no. (): –
; Charlotte Kroløkke, Karen A. Foss, and Saumya Pant, “Fertility Travel: e Com-
modi cation of Human Reproduction,” Cultural Politics , no. (): – .
. ere has been some debate regarding the accuracy and appropriateness of the
//. , .
term reproductive tourism. e concept draws on the original term medical tourism,
which is used to describe vacationers to “exotic” locales where they can also obtain
some medical treatment. is, however, has changed in recent years, and some schol-
ars object to the portrayal of reproductive tourism as travel that might be considered
leisurely or frivolous, thus trivializing the serious nature of infertile couples’ quests for
conception. Indeed, several scholars have suggested reproductive exile as a more ac-
curate term. See, e.g., Marcia C. Inhorn and Pasquale Patrizio, “Rethinking Reproduc-
tive ‘Tourism’ as Reproductive ‘Exile,’” Fertility and Sterility , no. (): – ;
Roberto Matorras, “Reproductive Exile Versus Reproductive Tourism,” Human Repro-
duction , no. (): . Nonetheless, many companies continue to prefer mar-
keting their reproductive services as part and parcel of tourist vacation packages (e.g.,
www.ivfvacation.com).
. Elizabeth F. S. Roberts, God’s Laboratory: Assisted Reproduction in the Andes
(Berkeley: University of California Press, ); Debora Spar, e Baby Business: How
Money, Science, and Politics Drive the Commerce of Conception (Boston: Harvard Busi-
ness School Press, ).
. Inhorn, “Globalization and Gametes,” – .
. Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, ); Marcia C. Inhorn, “‘Assisted’
Motherhood in Global Dubai: Reproductive Tourists and eir Helpers,” in e Glo-
balization of Motherhood: Deconstructions and Reconstructions of Biology and Care,
ed. Wendy Chavkin and JaneMaree Maher (New York: Routledge, ), – .
Inhorn, “‘Assisted’ Motherhood in Global Dubai.”
. Helena Ragoné, Surrogate Motherhood: Conception in the Heart (Boulder: West-
view Press, ); Elly Teman, Birthing a Mother: e Surrogate Body and the Pregnant
Self (Berkeley: University of California Press, ).
. Amrita Pande, “Not an ‘Angel,’ Not a ‘Whore’: Surrogates as ‘Dirty’ Workers in
India,” Indian Journal of Gender Studies , no. (): – ; Amrita Pande, “‘It
May Be Her Eggs but It’s My Blood’: Surrogates and Everyday Forms of Kinship in In-
dia,” Qualitative Sociology , no. (): – ; Amrita Pande, “Commercial Sur-
rogacy in India: Manufacturing a Perfect Mother- Worker,” Signs: Journal of Women
in Culture and Society , no. (): – ; Amrita Pande, “Transnational Com-
mercial Surrogacy in India: Gi s for Global Sisters?” Reproductive BioMedicine Online
, no. (): – ; Amrita Pande, “‘At Least I Am Not Sleeping with Anyone’:
Resisting the Stigma of Commercial Surrogacy in India,” Feminist Studies , no.
(): – ; Amrita Pande, “Commercial Surrogates and Embodied Resistances
in India,” in Gender, Mobility and Citizenship in Asia, ed. Mikako Iwatake (Helsinki:
Renvall Institute Publications, ); Kalindi Vora, “Indian Transnational Surrogacy
and the Commodi cation of Vital Energy,” Subjectivities , no. (): – ; Ka-
lindi Vora, “Medicine, Markets and the Pregnant Body: Indian Commercial Surrogacy
Deomampo: Transnational Surrogacy in India
and Reproductive Labor in a Transnational Frame,” Scholar and Feminist Online nos.
– (Fall – Spring ): http://sfonline.barnard.edu/reprotech/vora_.htm; Ka-
lindi Vora, “Limits of ‘Labor’: Accounting for A ect and the Biological in Transna-
tional Surrogacy and Service Work,” South Atlantic Quarterly , no. (): –
; Kalindi Vora, “Experimental Sociality and Gestational Surrogacy in the Indian
Art Clinic,” Ethnos (); Kalindi Vora, “Potential, Risk, and Return in Transnational
Indian Gestational Surrogacy,” Current Anthropology , no. S (): S– S.
. Pande, “Commercial Surrogacy in India,” – .
. Emily Martin, e Woman in the Body: A Cultural Analysis of Reproduction
(Boston: Beacon Press, ); Sherry Ortner, Anthropology and Social eory: Culture,
Power, and the Acting Subject (Durham: Duke University Press, ); Lyn Parker, ed.,
e Agency of Women in Asia (Singapore: Marshall Cavendish, ).
. For examples of ethnographic research that examines forms of resistance and
agency within the context of social, economic, and institutional inequalities, see De-
nise Brennan, What’s Love Got to Do with It? Transnational Desires and Sex Tourism
in the Dominican Republic (Durham: Duke University Press, ); Nicole Constable,
Maid to Order in Hong Kong: Stories of Filipina Workers (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, ); Nicole Constable, “Migrant Workers and the Many States of Protest in
Hong Kong,” Critical Asian Studies (): – ; Kamala Kempadoo, ed., Traf-
cking and Prostitution Reconsidered: New Perspectives on Migration, Sex Work, and
Human Rights (Boulder: Paradigm, ); Rhacel Salazar Parreñas, e Force of Do-
mesticity: Filipina Migrants and Domesticity (New York: New York University Press,
).
. Sayantani DasGupta and Shamita Das DasGupta, “Motherhood Jeopardized:
Reproductive Technologies in Indian Communities,” in Chavkin and Maher, Global-
ization of Motherhood, – ; Jyotsna Agnihotri Gupta, “Towards Transnational Fem-
inisms Some Re ections and Concerns in Relation to the Globalization of Reproduc-
tive Technologies,” European Journal of Women’s Studies , no. (): – ; Jyotsna
Agnihotri Gupta, “Reproductive Biocrossings: Indian Egg Donors and Surrogates in
the Globalized Fertility Market,” International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bio-
ethics , no. (): – .
. Chandra T. Mohanty, “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial
Discourses,” Feminist Review (): – .
. See, e.g., Kishwar Desai, “India’s Surrogate Mothers Are Risking eir Lives.
ey Urgently Need Protection,” Guardian, June , , http://www.guardian.co.uk
/commentisfree//jun//india- surrogates- impoverished- die? =optOut; Ame-
lia Gentleman, “India Nurtures Business of Surrogate Motherhood,” New York Times,
May , ; Judith Warner, “Outsourced Wombs,” New York Times, Jan. , ,
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com////outsourced- wombs/?scp=&sq
=outsourcedwombs&st=cse.
//. , .
. Partha Chatterjee, “Colonialism, Nationalism, and Colonialized Women: e
Contest in India,” American Ethnologist , no. (): – .
. In recent years there has been an increase in student enrollment in English-
medium schools and a drop in students opting for Marathi- medium schools in Mum-
bai; see Prajakta Chavan, “Students Prefer English Medium to Studying in Other Lan-
guages,” Hindustan Times, Oct. , , http://www.hindustantimes.com/India- news
/Mumbai/Students- prefer- English- medium- to- studying- in- other- languages
/Article– .aspx. Yet among the working- class women in this study access to
English- language instruction was extremely limited due to the costs of education,
making Nishi’s knowledge of English even more remarkable. Nishi herself spoke of
wanting to send her daughters to English- medium schools but regretted that she
could not a ord the costs.
. Nishi, interview with the author, July , .
. All estimates are based on the average exchange rate of US dollar to .
Indian rupees. Unless otherwise indicated, US dollars are assumed throughout.
. Nishi, interview, July , .
. Nishi, interview, July , .
. Among the eligibility requirements for women who wished to become surro-
gates, doctors required that married women have the permission of their husbands.
. Since Antara’s surrogacy experience payment for gestational surrogates has in-
creased to ,– , for most of the surrogates included in this study, depending
on the clinic they attended.
. Antara, interview with the author, Apr. , .
. Pande, “‘It May Be Her Eggs but It’s My Blood,’” – .
. Antara, interview with the author, Sept. , .
. Antara, interview, Sept. , .
. Antara, interview, Sept. , .
. Pande, “Commercial Surrogacy in India,” – .
. Rhacel Salazar Parreñas, Servants of Globalization: Women, Migration, and Do-
mestic Work (Stanford: Stanford University Press, ); Judith Butler, e Psychic Life
of Power: eories in Subjection (Stanford: Stanford University Press, ).
