Rachel E. Dubrofsky is Associate Professor of Communication at the University of South Florida. She is the author of
Shoshana Amielle Magnet is Associate Professor at the Institute of Feminist and Gender Studies at the University of Ottawa. She is the author of
Rachel E. Dubrofsky is Associate Professor of Communication at the University of South Florida. She is the author of
Shoshana Amielle Magnet is Associate Professor at the Institute of Feminist and Gender Studies at the University of Ottawa. She is the author of
The Public Fetus and the Veiled Woman: Transnational Surrogacy Blogs as Surveillant Assemblage
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Published:May 2015
Sayantani Dasgupta, Shamita Das Dasgupta, 2015. "The Public Fetus and the Veiled Woman: Transnational Surrogacy Blogs as Surveillant Assemblage", Feminist Surveillance Studies, Rachel E. Dubrofsky, Shoshana Amielle Magnet
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Transnational surrogacy in India is a commercial trade which brings into question the integrity of national bodies, as well as gendered, racialized, and reproductive bodies. These embodied borderlands are policed minimally by various state policies on surrogacy, gamete donation, and citizenship. This chapter will examine the online communities of Western Intended Parents (IPs), interrogating two cultural practices of Western IP bloggers: (1) the posting of online ultrasound images of “their” fetuses gestating in the wombs of Indian surrogates and (2) the posting of “belly/bump shots” of the surrogates themselves—usually headless or veiled images of (brown skinned, sari clad) surrogates' midsections. This chapter will draw from scholarship on ultrasonographic pregnancy surveillance and post-9/11 national surveillance practices to suggest that Western IPs are creating a cross-border cyber-nation whose blogging practices function as a surveillant assemblage—monitoring, abstracting and 'knowing' the body of the gestational Indian surrogate inside and out.
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