Marx In Utero: A workers’ inquiry of the in/visible labours of reproduction in the surrogacy industry

June 28, 2021

What can the work of Marx can tell us about surrogacy, and vice versa, what can the work of surrogacy tell us about Marx? Siggie’s research on commercial surrogacy in Georgia offers an interesting case study to re-assess the relevance of Marxist research frameworks, as it uncomfortably disrupts capitalist dualisms of production vs reproduction, family vs market, gift vs commodity and waged vs unwaged work. In this chapter, part of an edited volume ‘Marx in the Field’ by Alessandra Mezzadri, Siggie uses the work of Marx, and his disobedient feminist ‘granddaughters’ to analyse and politically translate the invisibility of reproductive work in the global surrogacy industry.

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