A study of the complex interplay of race, gender, and national identity within the context of transnational assisted reproduction.
“An Intersectional Study of Chinese Women’s Transnational Reproduction and the Making of Assisted Hun-Xue-Er” research project examines the transnational reproductive journeys of Chinese single women and lesbian couples who, excluded from assisted reproductive technology (ART) in mainland China, travel abroad to conceive children, often intentionally select Caucasian sperm donors to create Chinese–white Hun-Xue-Er (‘mixed-race’ children). Adopting an intersectional framework, the project explores how reproductive decision-making, particularly around donor selection, is shaped at the intersections of gender, sexuality, class, race, and citizenship.
The study is guided by three core research questions:
- How do Chinese single and lesbian women navigate donor selection within their transnational reproductive journeys?
- How are meanings and imaginaries of ‘race’, ‘whiteness’, ‘mixedness’, and ‘Chineseness’ articulated, negotiated, and reshaped in these reproductive practices?
- In what ways do these transnational reproductive practices challenge and/or reproduce global inequalities?
The project adopts a qualitative, multi-sited ethnographic research design:
- Digital ethnography across social media platforms, online communities, clinic and sperm bank websites to trace online discourses around transnational reproductive decision-making;
- Qualitative interviews with ~50 participants, including 15 Chinese single women, 15 lesbian couples, 10 family members, and 10 ART professionals, alongside participant observation in relevant community and clinical settings where consent is granted;
- Participatory art-based workshop(s) to support reflective engagement on reproductive decision-making and future imaginaries through creative writing and collage-making activities.
At a theoretical level, the project aims to contribute to conceptual transformation by rethinking how race, kinship, and reproduction are understood beyond Western contexts. By examining how racialised imaginaries of whiteness and mixedness are produced through global fertility markets and reworked within the Chinese context, the research challenges existing accounts of race and reproduction and highlights the relational nature of global racisms. Furthermore, through academic outputs and accessible dissemination channels, the project seeks to make these insights available to wider audiences, including practitioners, activists, policymakers, and communities already engaged in addressing reproductive and racial inequalities.
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