The Familial and the Familiar: Locating Relatedness in Colombian Donor Conception

In this article, I explore how women undergoing in vitro fertilization with familial or anonymous egg donors located relatedness with a donor-conceived child through familial and social identities. Recognizing gametes as substances that contain biological and sociocultural/behavioral traits shaped women’s narratives around interconnected notions of the familial and familiar, or the social understanding of biological and social inheritance, and knowledge of the genetic materials involved. Women’s narratives of relatedness reflect their relationships with family and society and their desire to reproduce these relationships in their child(ren), a process that reproduces prevailing Colombian social values and notions of ideal citizens.