Uneasy Thankfulness and the Dilemma of Balancing Partiality in Surrogacy Research

Abstract

A gay intended father and the author had met on an Internet platform for intended parents and surrogates, where he had stated that he was in a gay relationship, looking for a woman in Europe who would carry his children. He immediately agreed to share his experiences of surrogacy with the author. But it was not until a few months after the interview the gay intended father Googled the author and consequently came across a description of the author's PhD project. He found the text was 'simply insulting' and made him feel 'terribly sad'. This chapter explores the affective dimensions of fieldwork by reflecting on the conflict between them. It engages with the question of how we, as researchers, can attend to expectations of reciprocity, some of which might be unspoken and possibly unconscious, and some of which might not be in line with our own plans, wishes, or convictions. Furthermore, the chapter seeks to understand how these expectations are nurtured and shaped by the complex power relations inherent in our fields of study and in what ways this influences how we approach or present ourselves to (potential) research participants. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)