CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2011
| Author | Hovav, April |
|---|---|
| Title | (Re)conceiving Kinship: Gay Parenthood through Assisted Reproductive Technologies in Israel |
| Summary | In this thesis I explore the use of reproductive technologies by gay men in Israel. Based on a series of interviews I conducted in Israel in the spring of 2011, I discuss gay men's reproductive decisions, understandings of parenthood, and views on assisted reproductive technology. In the first chapter, I review feminist debates about the potential of reproductive technologies to challenge normative paradigms of kinship and situate my study within anthropological approaches to this question. I argue that while most studies of reproductive technologies focus on infertile heterosexual couples, studying how gay men make use of such technologies provides an additional perspective from which to explore these issues. In the second chapter, I map out the legal, social, and cultural context in which gay men navigate their course to parenthood. In this chapter, I argue that pronatalism is a dominant dimension of Israeli political and social culture and is grounded in a biocultural construction of Jewish collective identity. In the third chapter, I discuss the location of gay parenthood within this social, legal, and cultural landscape. I argue that same-sex couples use reproductive technologies in a way that affirms the importance of family continuity in Israeli society, but also challenges the normative paradigms of Jewish-Israeli kinship by prioritizing social over genetic bonds. |
| Supervisor | Sandor, Judit |
| Department | Gender Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2011/hovav_april.pdf |
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