Book Review: Relative Strangers: Family Life, Genes and Donor Conception
| DOI | 10.1177/0964663917704734 |
| Published date | 01 April 2017 |
| Author | Jill Marshall |
| Date | 01 April 2017 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Book Reviews
Book Reviews
PETRA NORDQVIST and CAROL SMART, Relative Strangers: Family Life, Genes and Donor
Conception. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, p. 192, ISBN 9781137297662, £20.99 (pbk).
Nordqvist and Smart’s engaging and accessible book is the result of empirical research
funded by the ESRC.
1
The authors cleverly and seamlessly interweave narratives from
in-depth interviews together with critical sociolegal analysis of what family life, genes
and donor conception mean in the 21st century. I highly recommend the resulting book
Relative Strangers as an invaluable source for those working in this particular area,
including scholars in sociology, law and other related disciplines and practitioners.
Additionally, it will have broader appeal to many other scholars researching what it
means to belong, fit, find identity and live a good life in and through law, politics, culture
and society, at a local, regional and international level.
The book contains eight clearly structured chapters based on interviews with 22
heterosexual couples, 22 lesbian couples and 30 grandparents of donor-conceived chil-
dren, 15 of whom had a heterosexual son or daughter and 15 whose daughters were
lesbian. It is informed by a subtle and sophisticated analysis of openness, keeping
secrets, genetics, kinship and belonging and impeccably sourced.
In terms of understanding who we arethrough family lineage and throughlove and care
in our existence, we have beencautioned against ‘tak[ing] for granted the central role that
culture assigns to blood ties in the formation of one’s identity’ (Triger, 2012: 381). These
issues have become more pertinent in recent times in medical ethics and developments in
family law because of technological advances, particularly in IVF, gamete donation,
surrogacy and biological fatherhood/DNA testing disputes. One of the central themes of
Relative Strangers is the concept of the genein a sense of belonging. The authors conclude
that this concept is ‘now part of everyday thinking’ (p. 144). It is routinely invoked when
talking about family relationships, reproduction and children (ibid). However, they point
out that, on closer inspection, ‘what genes do is not terribly clear in people’s thinking’
(p. 145). This reminds me of what Rose calls the ‘language of life’ which contains ‘the
digital instructions’ to make us what we are (Rose, 2007: 14). We have become:
...the kinds of people who think of our present and our future in terms of the quality of our
individual biological lives and those with whom we identify. (Rose, 2001: 22)
Yet, as Rose observes, ‘[t]he brute reductionism of much of the genomics of the
closing decades of the 20th century already seems old-fashioned ...’ (Rose, 2007:
Social & Legal Studies
2017, Vol. 26(2) 273–287
ªThe Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0964663917704734
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