Isabel Côté is a full professor in the department of social work at Université du Québec en Outaouais. She holds the Canada Research Chair on Third-Party Reproduction and Family Ties, is a member of Partenariat Famille en mouvance (a research partnership on the changing family) and of the Réseau québécois en études féministes (RéQEF) (a Quebec network for feminist studies). Her research program aims to develop a global understanding of third-party reproduction that brings together the viewpoints of all parties, including parents, donors, surrogates, the children conceived this way, and the extended families. Using innovative qualitative methodologies, her work draws on the theoretical contributions of sociology of the family, kinship anthropology, and feminist and LGBTQ studies, and takes a fresh look at contemporary family realities. In an innovative way, her work considers children as full agents in the construction of knowledge about families created thanks to third-party reproduction. Lastly, the results of her work provide material, based on empirical data, to inform the social debate about the issues raised by third-party reproduction while also suggesting courses of action to better support the wellbeing of the people concerned.
