Commercial Contract Pregnancy in India, Judgment, and Resistance to Oppression

Bibliographic Data

ID12146239
AuthorsKATY FULFER (0000-0001-8972-5582, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume30
Issue4
Pages846-861
Publication date2015-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueHypatia (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0887-5367 • E-ISSN: 1527-2001
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1111/hypa.12179
OpenAlexW1834294713
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited22

Feminist scholars have done much to identify oppressive forces within transnational commercial contract pregnancy and its social context that may coerce women into becoming gestational laborers. Feminists have also been careful not to depict gestational laborers as merely passive victims of oppression, though there is disagreement about the degree to which contract pregnancy offers opportunities for agency. In this article I consider how women who sell gestational labor may be agents against their oppression. I make explicit connections between resistance and judgment, which I will take to be a critically considered, intersubjective evaluative claim. Drawing on work by Jennifer Nedelsky and Hannah Arendt, my main argument will be that individual judgments can better enable oppressed persons to resist some aspects of their oppression, and that judgment helps to (further) develop agential capacities, in particular, the capacity for a person to be self‐constituting, to see herself as giving reasons for her own actions. I use Indian contract pregnancy as a case study to think through connections between resistance and judgment

Agency (philosophy · Argument (complex analysis · Context (archaeology · Law and economics · Oppression · Political science · Politics · Resistance (ecology · Social contract · Social science · Sociology · Demographic Trends and Gender Preferences · Gender Studies · Law · Medicine · Psychology · Reproductive Health and Technologies · Social Psychology

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