Nordqvist, P. and Smart, C. Relative Strangers: Family Life, Genes and Donor Conception. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 2014. 195pp. £19.99 ISBN 978–1–137–29766–2 (pbk)

Abstract

It is not often that an academic book can be described as truly delightful, but, in the case of Relative Strangers such a description is certainly appropriate. The authors have delivered a highly compelling read while staying faithful to the accounts of the 119 participants interviewed for this study. The empirical data collected are extremely rich in their complexity, but the authors present the inherent messiness and contradictions of human experience and perceptions with clarity. The key contribution of this book to the field of assisted reproduction and kinship studies lies in its disciplined focus on additional family members, such as grandparents who, despite playing a significant role in the formation and support of such novel families, have historically been underrepresented in research. In brief, this research monograph is about how donor-conceived families go about constructing relatedness and a sense of belonging in a family where the traditional paths of such connectedness (genetic relatedness) are severed by the introduction of ‘stranger’ gametes. The first chapter of Relative Strangers discusses the notion of the proper family and explores the concept of identity, examining its connection to knowing one's genetic history. However, the authors soon park this term in favour of what they suggest is the more useful concept of belonging as central to understanding how family members seek to create a sense of connectedness in the absence of genetic relatedness. It is the concept of belonging and how it is established that runs throughout several chapters of the book. Chapters two and three examine the journeys of participants using donor gametes to conceive, presenting the accounts in a clear and organised way by separating the heterosexual and lesbian couples' experiences, contrasting the inevitable sadness of requiring donor material to conceive because of infertility in a heterosexual partnership with the fortuitous opportunity presented by donor conception to lesbian couples. Chapters four and five focus on the decisions made by the parents to conceal (chapter 4) or share with others (chapter 5) the means by which their child was conceived, and chapter five highlights the difficulties of being committed to openness at a time when a wider cultural narrative on this topic has not yet been established. As well as sensitively conveying the emotional challenges and fears held by parents about disclosure, this chapter also describes the sometimes complex negotiations with grandparents that such intentions towards disclosure require. The remainder of the book examines the nature of connectedness, belonging and relatedness, first in relation to the donor (chapter 6) and then in relation to the donor-conceived family more widely (chapters 7 and 8). Chapter six discusses the means by which the families manage the absent presence of unknown or identity-released donors and their tantalising yet enigmatic nature. It also examines how the relationship with known donors and their kin are managed to best establish kinship boundaries and to prevent excess kinship. Along with chapter five, I found chapter seven one of the most enlightening and enjoyable chapters in the book, as it provides an exploration of the strategies employed by participants to create a sense of belonging and connectedness in donor-conceived families. This included discounting the significance of genetic links while simultaneously foregrounding the importance of parenthood, not as something given through genetics but as something created through practices of care and social interaction. This chapter also, interestingly, showed the significance of ‘resemblement practices’ and how this was often an important strategy enabling the family to claim connectedness with the donor-conceived child. The final chapter, chapter eight, concludes by identifying how participants' perceptions of genes and relatedness were paradoxical in nature, so that genes were at once central but also insignificant to the meaning and doing of kinship. Through the close analysis of three participants' stories the authors then show how some of the participants have come to understand and assert their authority as parents by disassembling and reassembling meanings of kinship, by drawing on what was often a range of different and competing narratives and epistemologies. While it would have been useful to have had some further theoretical development and discussion, perhaps expanding on some of the concepts and issues raised in this chapter, it seems unlikely that the readership of this book will particularly lament such an omission as, while this text is suitable for informed academics with research interests in this field, it is also appropriate for the un-inducted reader simply interested in donor conception, as well as potential users of donor conception technologies and their families. The authors of this text should be commended on the drawing together of? this title as well as for the inevitable skill and sensitivities they must have displayed when ‘poking around’ the lives of the participants involved in the study. This has ultimately enabled them to produce a genuinely human and engaging read.