ABSTRACT

The global economy is emerging from the greatest economic slump since the great depression. Analysis and understanding of the societal conditions that shape people's work lives may be the best tools for conquering their anxiety and uncertainty. This chapter analyses the societal conditions in India by visiting the home of a commercial surrogate, 27-year-old Anjali, seven months along with a baby grown from the egg of a Canadian woman, fertilized by the sperm of her Canadian husband, and implanted in Anjali's womb at the Akanksha Infertility Clinic. Drawing on the finer tools of the interactionists, people can see how many ways there are to encounter the possibility of estrangement from symbols of oneself. What people need is a new scholarship that draws together the commodification, our attachment to and detachment from the things people make and buy, the strategies they use to address it, and the role of emotion in those strategies.