The project aims at identifying and examining key as well as peripheral actors and their interrelations in the field of suroggacy and related practices. The project will be based on ethnographic research, through which two key sides: surrogate women and intended parents’ motives, experiences, everyday lives and their interrelations will be studies. Besides, surrogacy agencies and clinics will be examined ethnographically. The research, by analyzing discourses of institutional actors will reveal how social relations, cultural norms, medical, religious or legislative regulations form the phenomenon of surrogacy. We will also study the transnational dimension of surrogacy and conceptualize it from a legislative perspective. The research will be interesting for socio-cultural anthropologists, medical anthropologists, sociologists and researchers working in the field of reproduction. The research will enable the representatives of the medical field, researchers of politics, gender and theology to develop comprehensive knowledge and position about surrogacy.

Principal investigator: Elene Gavashelishvili