Brokering Reproductive Bodies, Brokering Moralities: Fertility Brokers in Transnational/Domestic Surrogacy Markets for Gay Chinese Intended Parents

• In Event: 40860 - Section on Economic Sociology Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 6. Atypical markets

Abstract

This article explores the role of fertility brokers in facilitating morally contested exchange within surrogacy markets targeting gay Chinese intended parents (IPs). This group of IPs uniquely rejects the prevalent altruistic moral framework in existing markets and views surrogacy as a purely economic transaction. Why do gay Chinese IPs reject the altruistic framework, despite the necessity for moral justification? How does exchange in the surrogacy markets, both domestic and transnational, become possible when customers' cultural values contradict the public moral context in China and diverge from the prevailing moral understanding in existing global markets? Drawing on a two-month ethnography in a transnational fertility broker agency in China, and eight interviews with fertility brokers and gay Chinese IPs, I identify fertility brokers as cultural agents in facilitating transactions. Facing gay Chinese IPs, brokers follow IPs' economically rationalized logic, mobilizing gendered discourse to construct moral meaning and implementing institutional settings to address IPs' concerns about surrogates' moral conduct. Facing surrogates, brokers facilitate or simulate interactions between IPs and surrogates aligned with the moral frameworks specific to each local market. This paper emphasizes brokerage in facilitating morally contested exchanges, despite the divergent and even conflicting moral perceptions between buyers and sellers in commodification. By comparing markets for gay Chinese IPs in the US, Eastern Europe, and China, this paper further demonstrates how cultural brokerage is embedded in the power asymmetries between IPs and surrogates, and the broader socioeconomic contexts of different regional markets.

Author

• Yuqing Huang, University of Chicago