Securitizing the Canadian Family Through Transnational Reproductive Governmentality and Citizenship

This thesis puts top-down and bottom-up understandings of Canadian reproductive biopolitics into dialogue by acknowledging the link that reproductive citizenship forges between familial and national reproduction. I focus on procreative practice of transnational surrogacy, using intersectional governmentality as a lens for critical policy analysis and a critical discourse analysis. This approach allows me to make three main arguments. First, I determine that the Government of Canada relies on a decentralized and globalizing regime of government to manage such families. Second, to secure the nation-state from possible threats, this system of governance can lead to citizenship deprivation for children born through transnational surrogacy. Thirdly, despite the Government of Canada framing the families as a threat and the possible complications that their offspring face, Canadian families whose children were produced transnationally can act as securitized governmental actors through a negotiation of state regulation and employing state legitimated bio-political discourses.