Suchergebnisse

This book looks at the simultaneous processes of making and un-making of families that are part of the adoption practice. Whereas most studies on transnational adoption concentrate on the adoptive family, the author identifies not only the happy occasion when a family gains a child, but also the sorrow and loss of the child to its family of origin. Situating transnational adoption in the context of the Global North-South divide, Hogbacka investigates the devastating effects of unequal life chances and asymmetrical power relations on the adoption process and on the mothers whose children are adopted. Based on unique primary material gathered in in-depth interviews with South African families of origin and Finnish adoptive families, the book investigates the decision-making processes of both sets of parents and the encounters between them. The first mothers' narratives are juxtaposed with those of the adopters and of the adoption social workers who act on the principles of the wider adoption system. Concluding with a critique of the Global Northism that exemplifies current practices, Hogbacka sketches the contours of a more just approach to transnational adoption that would shatter rather than perpetuate inequality. The book can also be read as an expose of the consequences of current inequalities for poor families. Global Families, Inequality and Transnational Adoption will be of interest to students and scholars of adoption studies, family and kinship, sociology, anthropology, social work and development.

Although the objective of intercountry adoption is to provide parentless children with families, it also has other unintended consequences. Postcolonial theorists have shown that the intercountry adoption system is shaped by unequal power relations between the Global North and South. Drawing on interviews with South African adoption social workers and birth mothers, this article shifts attention from Global North perspectives to those of the Global South. By focusing on the circumstances of how children become available for adoption, some of the ways in which the adoption system participates in creating the pool of 'abandoned' children are explicated.

Transnational adoption is currently at its peak. The direction of these adoptions is from south to north and from east to west. Scrutiny of previous research shows that there is a discrepancy between the supply and demand of children for adoption. While there are millions of orphans and children in the world needing homes, Western adoptive parents queue for what are considered to be 'adoptable' children. Drawing on 15 thematic interviews with Finnish adoptive parents this article considers the reasons behind the recent trend to adopt from abroad, and how parental preferences are formed in individual families. It is shown that adopting is primarily connected to family formation, and is linked to a powerful desire to experience parenthood. Parental preferences are a function of the changing demands and expectations of parenting in general in the West. Adoption from abroad just provides a new way of fulfilling these expectations. The ideal child is a healthy female infant of European or Asian origin that allows the adoptive parents to fulfil and perform their ideal parental roles. On the global level parents' hopes and anxieties result in the stratification of children in transnational adoption by age, skin colour, health and gender, further escalating the discrepancy between demand and supply.