Start Date
11-6-2011 12:00 AM
Subject Areas
transnational, colonial/imperial, feminist, reproduction
Abstract
This paper examines media images of the burgeoning surrogate motherhood industry in India from two vantage points to underscore the radically different kinds of cultural work conducted by this new visual archive.
First, I examine the representational grammar of Western media outlets where an Orientalist discourse is updated to accommodate contemporary global flows. Second, I examine how Indian clinics and institutions that are part of the medical tourism industry represent medicalized reproduction. The Indian images repeatedly reinscribe a heteronoromative white “Western” family as the beneficiary of Indian scientific prowess. These images seek to reverse the terms of a very recent colonial history, positioning the former colony as a technological hub. Through a juxtaposition of these two different set of visual narratives this paper teases out the radically different ways in which contemporary medical practices help rewrite our understandings of reproduction, motherhood and geopolitics. Drawing on feminist and postcolonial theories of visual culture the paper highlights how global circuits of scientific knowledge production and flows of economy have transformed the concept of a global sisterhood.
Keywords
Surrogacy, Transnational Motherhood
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"Womb Farms" in India: Orientalism in Scientific Garb?
This paper examines media images of the burgeoning surrogate motherhood industry in India from two vantage points to underscore the radically different kinds of cultural work conducted by this new visual archive.
First, I examine the representational grammar of Western media outlets where an Orientalist discourse is updated to accommodate contemporary global flows. Second, I examine how Indian clinics and institutions that are part of the medical tourism industry represent medicalized reproduction. The Indian images repeatedly reinscribe a heteronoromative white “Western” family as the beneficiary of Indian scientific prowess. These images seek to reverse the terms of a very recent colonial history, positioning the former colony as a technological hub. Through a juxtaposition of these two different set of visual narratives this paper teases out the radically different ways in which contemporary medical practices help rewrite our understandings of reproduction, motherhood and geopolitics. Drawing on feminist and postcolonial theories of visual culture the paper highlights how global circuits of scientific knowledge production and flows of economy have transformed the concept of a global sisterhood.