PAPER 3: (Re)producing the Scandinavian welfare state through exceptional migrations
Ingvill Stuvøy and Lene Myong

In the Scandinavian welfare states, transnational adoption and its displacement of children has long been institutionalized. More recently, transnational surrogacy has emerged, amidst controversy, as another type of ‘repro-migration,’ with both intended parents and children crossing borders in order to finally settle in Scandinavia. While transnational adoption and transnational surrogacy are often contrasted to one another as respectively ‘good’ and ‘bad’ reproduction, they are also commonly depicted and homogenized as ‘alternatives’ to dominant reproductive norms. In this paper, we suggest that such conceptualizations effectively work to conceal how both of these phenomena are imbricated in global, historical, and material inequalities, all the while contributing to the (re)production of the Scandinavian welfare states. Thus, we propose a different analytical vocabulary that understands transnational adoption and transnational surrogacy as central reproductive domains in which Scandinavian welfare state biopolitics are calibrated and produced. Following from this, we argue that transnational adoption and transnational surrogacy may be thought of as exceptional migrations conditioned by a set of racialized logics that organize the welfare state around white reproductive desires. Empirically, the paper takes its point of departure in the different contexts of transnational adoption in Denmark and transnational surrogacy in Norway and as a first step, we ask how the states regulate, stimulate and facilitate for these repro-migratory phenomena.

Chairs:
Ingvill Stuvøy is a postdoctoral fellow in sociology at the Department of Sociology and Political Science at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). Her dissertation entitled Parenthood at a price. Accounting for the viability of transnational surrogacy (2018) examines the symbolic and material economies of transnational surrogacy. Her work has been published in Anthropology & Medicine and Reproductive Biomedicine & Society Online, and in a Norwegian anthology on reproduction and gender equality (Ravn, Kristensen & Sørensen 2016).

Lene Myong is head of Gender Studies, University of Stavanger in Norway. Her work on transnational adoption, affect, and racism is published in journals such as Kunst og kultur, Peripeti, GLQ, Cultural Studies, and Sexualities.

Ingvill Stuvøy (chair): Ingvill.stuvoy@ntnu.no
Lene Myong (co-chair): lene.myong@uis.no
Johanna Gondouin: johanna.gondouin@gender.su.se
Suruchi Thapar-Björkert:Suruchi.Thapar-Bjorkert@statsvet.uu.se
Kim Park Nelson: parknelson@mnstate.edu
Eleana Kim: eleana.kim@uci.edu