About mothers and donors: Identity and sense of belonging in the light of maternity experiences, rights to filiation and access to assisted reproductive technologies in a homoparental family association in Quebec
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15448/1984-7289.2015.2.17907Keywords:
Kinship. Homoparental families. Quebec. Motherhood. Identity.Abstract
The division of legal powers in Quebec (Canada) makes the legislative framework very specific in this province. Marriage is part of a federal jurisdiction while filiation follows the provincial regulations. This paper follow the afterwords of the experience of gay families members of an organization which worked in the production of the legal context that allowed Quebec province to implement a law regulating the civil union of homosexual couples, conceding dual maternal and paternal affiliation for adopted children in 2002. In 2009, Quebec was the first Canadian province to ensure free access to assisted reproduction procedures, also including gay couples. This context, the result of an intense debate, is perceived by my interlocutors as a place of equality. The aim of this paper is to analyze the choices and particularities of the experience of motherhood and filiation for gay couples in Quebec. I question how the association’s members experience daily life and the challenges to raise families built with the help of a donor and prepare for a possible desire of the children to know more about the donor. Could this curiosity differentiate the meaning of motherhood and homoparental family? The negotiation of role and place of the gamete donor’s in the family is being challenged through what I call “hypothetical search” of origins.Downloads
References
ALLEBRANDT, Débora. Parenté fluide: la quête des origines au Brésil et au Québec. Dialogue entre parenté, droit et science. Montréal, 2013. Tese de doutorado em Antropologia, Université de Montréal.
OLIVEIRA, Luis Roberto Cardoso de. Droit légal et insulte morale: dilemmes de la citoyenneté au Brésil, au Quebec et aux États-Unis. Québec: Les presses de l’université Laval, 2005.
CARP, E. Wayne. Adoption politics: bastard nation and ballot initiative 58. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004.
COLLARD, Chantal. Pluriparentalité et pluriparenté: regard anthropologique sur le droit de l’adoption et de la procréation assistée au Québec. Enfances, Familles, Générations, n. 14, p. 9-25, 2011.
FINKLER, Kaja. The kin in the gene: the medicalization of family and kinship in American. Current Anthropology, v. 42, n. 2, p. 235-263, 2001 .
FONSECA, Claudia. O direito às origens: segredo e desigualdade no controle de informações sobre a identidade pessoal. Revista de Antropologia USP, v. 53, n. 2, p. 493-526, 2010.
FONSECA, Claudia. “War” in the field of contemporary adoption: addressing the reality of special needs children. 2011. Trabalho apresentado no Seminar on Violence and Children: Violence and the circulation of children, University of St. Andrews, Escócia.
FRANKLIN, Sarah; RAGONE, Helene (Orgs.). Reproducing reproduction: kinship, power, and technological innovation. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998.
HALL, Stuart; CERVULLE, Maxime. Identités et cultures: politiques des cultural studies. Paris: Amsterdam, 2008.
LUNA, Naara. Provetas e clones: teorias da concepção, pessoa e parentesco nas novas tecnologias reprodutivas. Rio de Janeiro, 2004. Tese de doutorado em Antropologia Social, Museu Nacional, UFRJ.
MARRE, Diana; BESTARD, Joan. The family body: persons, bodies and resemblance. In: Jeanette Edwards; Carles Salazar (Orgs.). European kinship in the age of biotechnology. New York: Berghahn Books, 2012. p. 64-78.
NASCIMENTO, Pedro Francisco Guedes. Reprodução, desigualdade e políticas públicas de saúde: uma etnografia da construção do “desejo de filhos”. Porto Alegre, 2009. Tese de doutorado em Antropologia Social, PPGAS, Ufrgs.
OUELLETTE, Françoise-Romaine. Les noms et papiers d’identité des enfants adoptés à l’étranger. In: Agnès Fine (Org.). États civils en question: papiers, identités, sentiment de soi. Paris: Éditions du Comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques, 2008.
p. 146-174.
RAPP, Rayna; GINSBURG, Faye. Reverberations: Disability and the new kinship imaginary. Anthropological Quarterly, v. 84, n. 2, p. 379-410, 2011 .
STRATHERN, Marilyn. Property, substance and effect: anthropological essays on persons and things. London: Athlone Press, 1999.
TAHON, Marie-Blanche. Filiation et universalité: questions à partir du Québec. Dialogue, v. 1, n. 187, p. 111-125, 2010.
TAYLOR, Charles. Sources of the self: the making of the modern identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
THÉRY, Irène. Des humains comme les autres: bioéthique, anonymat et genre du don. Paris: Editions de l’École de Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 2010.
TURNEY, Lyn. The making and breaking of paternity secrets in donor insemination. Journal of medical Ethics, v. 36, n. 7, p. 401-406, 2010 .
VOLKMAN, Toby Alice. Seeking sisters: twinship and kinship in age of internet miracles and DNA technologies In: Diana Marre; Laura Briggs (Orgs.). International adoption: global inequalities and the circulation of children. New York: New York University Press, 2009. p. 283-302.
YNGVESSON, Barbara. Belonging in an adopted world: race, identity, and transnational adoption. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2010.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2016 Civitas – Journal of Social Sciences
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The submission of originals to this journal implies the transfer by the authors of the right for printed and digital publication. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication. If the authors wish to include the same data into another publication, they must cite this journal as the site of original publication. As the journal is of open access, the articles are allowed for free use in scientific and educational applications, with citation of the source (please see the Creative Commons License at the bottom of this page).
