Emotional challenges and legal uncertainties in kinship by choice: a multi-sited ethnography by María Eugenia Olavarría in Mexico

Abstract

This text studies a multi-sited ethnography, a methodological process backed up by research work from María Eugenia Olavarría, with a dual goal: denaturing pregnancy and understanding gestating for others in Mexico. The paper presents the methodology design, identifies the main players and discusses some key concepts such as relational infertility, reproductive autonomy, procreative relocation or reproductive exile that arise in the current debate on surrogate pregnancy. Finally, some provisional findings are presented, and final thoughts given on suspending moral judgement as a basic methodological principle.

Keywords

• parentesco por elección
• infertilidad relacional
• exilio reproductivo
• autonomía reproductiva
• etnografía multisituada