Relative Strangers
Start: 1 October 2010 (30 months)
Funder: Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Ref: RES-062-23-1308
Project team: Carol Smart (Principal Investigator), Petra Nordqvist (Research Associate and Co-Investigator)
About the project
This research project explores how heterosexual and lesbian couples who conceive using donor sperm, eggs or embryos negotiate telling parents and relatives about their decision to use a donor. Wider family is often very important in the context of having a baby, and we are investigating how couples feel about sharing information about the process of donor conception with their own parents, in-laws, extended families and of course their children.
As part of this project we interview heterosexual and lesbian couples, and also grandparents of donor conceived children, about their experiences. We talk to those who have shared information with others, but also those who have decided to keep some things private. We have also commissioned a Directive at the Mass Observation Project, based at the University of Sussex.
More about the background to the project
Project update
We are now, in Spring 2012, working on analysing all the data we have collected from our research interviews with families of donor-conceived children. (A big thank you to all our participants!) Petra is doing some of this work while on a visiting fellowship to the Brocher Foundation, Geneva. For more about our work so far, have a look at this short
Some agreements between lesbian couples and gay donor fathers about parenting after donor conception have ended up in court when agreements break down. Carol has been looking at how courts are dealing with these disputes and at what sociological research (including our project) can contribute to these ideas. See her video for more: