A Novel Approach to New Family-Forms, Assisted Reproductive Technologies and Transnationalism. A multi-sited ethnography: Spain, Denmark, Canada and Israel

The global assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) market is expected to reach USD 45 billion by 2025 with more than 8 million babies born. Europe dominates the market followed by North-America and Asia.

However more than half of European states and most countries in the Americas and Asia prohibit access to ARTs to solo individuals, same-sex couples and heterosexual couples who need donated eggs, embryos or surrogacy.

It is a prime example of contemporary technological transnationalism with potential parents pursuing treatment abroad in the hopes of conception.

As ARTs spread to populations that have not had access to them before, how is reproduction being transformed by technologies and individuals whose sexual and reproductive lives may defy social norms and national laws?

Due to biotechnologies and the populations who seek ARTs a new theoretical framework for cross-border reproductive care is necessary.

The overarching aim is to study the question of ARTs, new family-forms and transnationalism in three ways: Firstly by exploring how the transnational circulations of ARTs, bodily material and ideas take form in three continents: Europe, North-America and the Middle-East (multi-sited ethnography).

The second is through the ethnographic approach of analysis of specific locations, examining how technologies, genetic flow and ideas come to settle in four countries, leaders in ARTs and sexual and reproductive health rights (single-site ethnographies): Spain, Denmark, Canada and Israel.

Thirdly, by studying the complexity and intersection of the biological, social, politico-legal and ideological between new family-forms and ARTs, and how these intersections shape their experiences.

I am uniquely positioned to implement this study due to my pioneering scholarship on ARTs and new family-forms from a strong interdisciplinary stance and solid experience of managing international teams, bringing together divergent empirical contexts for ground-breaking research.