Рец. на кн.: Heather Jacobson. Labor of Love: Gestational Surrogacy and the Work of Making Babies. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2016. 218 p.

Антропологический форум. 2017. № 35. С. 215–228.

Conroy N.

A new book by sociologist, Heather Jacobson is a valuable addition to the existing ethnographies of commercial surrogate motherhood. The author focuses on the USA and analyses its surrogacy market relationships using the concept of paid labor, which has allowed her to identify a fundamental contradiction within the industry under study. She claims that the development and profitability of American surrogacy are mainly possible due to the hidden nature of surrogate labor and professional skills. Various professionals involved in surrogacy, and the surrogate mothers themselves tend to obscure their work, to distract public attention from the money women make. This serves to make the industry more palatable. Jacobson believes that uncovering the surrogate’s efforts may help to generate recognition of the value of reproductive labor generally. She demonstrates the particularities of class structure in surrogacy but gives no convincing explanations for the racial homogeneity and religiosity of her sample or their possible connections with labor and the market. Nevertheless the book is topical and may be of interest to anthropologists, economic sociologists, gender and technology scholars.

Keywords: этнография, США, технологии, USA, technology, labor, ethnography, суррогатное материнство, труд, родство, assisted reproduction, вспомогательная репродукция, surrogacy, relatedness

Publication based on the results of: ­­­Studies in economic sociology of social stability in crisis times (2017)