Marcin Smietana is the principal investigator of this project, funded by Marie Curie IOF and running from October 2014 to March 2017. The project aims to examine the experiences, meanings and practices of negotiating relatedness in European gay father families created through surrogacy and egg donation in the UK and, transnationally, in the US. The study of the under-researched and developing phenomenon of surrogacy seeks to identify how reproduction or subversion of mainstream family models by Assisted Reproduction Techniques (ARTs) is shaped by four factors: (a) genetic links between parents and children, (b) participation of more than two parents in the conception of the child, (c) intersected gender and sexuality of the parents, (d) social determinants such as class, race, nationality and bio-political institutions in the transnational context. The comparative framework of the US- and UK-based fieldwork enables comparison between the former free market of ARTs and the latter more regulated one.
Find out more about this research project on the SurrogARTs website.
Proposal #629341, European Commission FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IOF, Marie Curie Award (2013-2016): €239,282
Image: 'Baby,' by Evilspoon7 [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0]
