Paperwork: Following the trail of (identity) papers in transnational commercial surrogacy

Abstract

Transnational surrogacy—the carrying of a child by a woman in one country on behalf of persons in another—is strongly shaped by documents. Of these, identity documents are particularly crucial as they establish the belonging of a child born through such an arrangement both to its parents (birth certificate) and to a country (passport). However, the acquisition of these documents is subject to national laws that may contradict one another in transnational settings where citizens of more than one country are involved. As a result, in the last few years, there have been several cases of children stuck in legal limbo without clear parenthood and citizenship. Based on ethnographic research in India and Germany, we analyze how in such a transnational setting, documents and documentation become part of the making and unmaking of persons and belonging.

Invisible Labours

“…This echoes the original purpose of birth registration in England as the establishing of 'legitimate' (through fathering) children in a kinship group, originally for inheritance purposes (Probert 2011, Higgs 1996. It also echoes how official adoption and international surrogacy paperwork mediates and produces recognised personhood, kinship relations and state entitlements such as citizenship in cases of babies who have liminal statuses (Kim 2019, König andMajumdar 2022). In the case of transnational adoption or surrogacy, the focus is the production of the child's identity and personhood, but in my research the official paperwork creates a trail which identifies the whole kinship group through time, working to make the baby and also its other kin legible to the state and therefore legitimate and 'real'.…”

“…The identification of individuals in civil registration is through the names of persons and also their relationships to one another, which must be recorded in order to administer them (Scott, Tehranian and Mathias 2002). In birth registration in England, two parental identities can be recorded on birth certificates (Probert 2011, Bainham 2008, meaning that certification creates parents as well as children, as noted in other jurisdictions in cases of surrogacy (König and Majumdar 2022) and pregnancy ending (Charrier and Clavandier 2019b). Names are understood in social science to invoke, create and display connections between individuals and their family or kin (Finch 2008, Pilcher 2015, Bodenhorn and vom Bruck 2006, Layne 2006) situated in understandings of personhood and relations between the living and dead (Benson 2006).…”