US “contracted surrogates”. Between gift-giving and help narratives

In this paper, I present findings from two ethnographic research conducted on US surrogacy within two different fertility clinics based in Southern California (2014-2016; 2017-2020). The paper analyzes the experiences of fifty US surrogates and some reproductive industry employees, to show new trends in framing surrogacy in the US over the last decade. Existing sociological and anthropological studies on US surrogacy focused on new forms of kinship highlighting the gift-giving theory as a key concept with which to analyze contemporary surrogacy. The aim of this contribution is to answer the following questions: how and for what purposes do surrogates evoke gift categories when they do, and what does it mean when they don’t? My article will reveal new trends especially regarding the populations involved in a surrogacy journey (i.e., more African American, and Hispanic surrogates and fewer White ones), a lack of communication and relationship between parties, and new analytical categories to read US surrogacy (surrogates use the concept of help more readily than ideas around gift-giving).