Paper short abstract:

The paper argues that surrogacy negotiations are the assemblage of formal and informal. The shortness of the Georgian surrogacy law, lack of official regulations and ubiquity of surrogacy agency regulations create spaces of informalities for surrogacy actors to pursue their reproductive objectives.

Paper long abstract:

With its surrogacy-friendly legislation, cheap labor force, and laissez-faire approach to healthcare, Georgia has become one of the surrogacy centers worldwide. Commercial surrogacy is legal based on the short Article N143 in the Law of Georgia on Health Care. The law clarifies that intended parents are considered legal parents, and the surrogate or the donor does not have any rights and obligations towards a child. Surrogacy agencies and clinics have a freedom of managing the field with their own regulations: contracts, internal policies and unwritten rules. The shortness of the Georgian surrogacy law, lack of official regulations and ubiquity of surrogacy agency regulations create spaces of informalities for surrogacy actors to pursue their reproductive objectives.

In this paper, I am interested in exploring international surrogacy negotiations with the concept of informality. I rely on Helmke and Levitsky’s (2004) definition of informality as socially shared rules created outside of officially sanctioned channels. I want to emphasize the complementary (Hart 2005) characteristics of informality, go beyond opposing formal with informal, and argue about the assemblage of this two. I want to elaborate on the embeddedness of informality on macro and micro levels, informal practices of state actors or the representative of formal agencies, and intended parents and surrogates.

The research is a part of a wider anthropological research project, 'Surrogacy as a Networked Phenomenon: the study of key actors and their interrelations' (2020-2023).