Edited by Toby Alice Volkman

Cultures of Transnational Adoption

Cultures of Transnational Adoption


During the 1990s, the number of children adopted from poorer countries to the more affluent West grew exponentially. Close to 140,000 transnational adoptions occurred in the United States alone. While in an earlier era, adoption across borders was assumed to be straightforward—a child traveled to a new country and stayed there—by the late twentieth century, adoptees were expected to acquaint themselves with the countries of their birth and explore their multiple identities. Listservs, websites, and organizations creating international communities of adoptive parents and adoptees proliferated. With contributors including several adoptive parents, this unique collection looks at how transnational adoption creates and transforms cultures. The cultural experiences considered in this volume raise important questions about race and nation; about kinship, biology, and belonging; and about the politics of the sending and receiving nations. Several essayists explore the images and narratives related to transnational adoption. Others examine the recent preoccupation with “roots” and “birth cultures.” They describe a trip during which a group of Chilean adoptees and their Swedish parents traveled “home” to Chile, the “culture camps” attended by thousands of young-adult Korean adoptees whom South Korea is now eager to reclaim as “overseas Koreans,” and adopted children from China and their North American parents grappling with the question of what “Chinese” or “Chinese American” identity might mean. Essays on Korean birth mothers, Chinese parents who adopt children within China, and the circulation of children in Brazilian families reveal the complexities surrounding adoption within the so-called sending countries. Together, the contributors trace the new geographies of kinship and belonging created by transnational adoption. Contributors. Lisa Cartwright, Claudia Fonseca, Elizabeth Alice Honig, Kay Johnson, Laurel Kendall, Eleana Kim, Toby Alice Volkman, Barbara Yngvesson Roberta's Note: Although written primarily as a research treatis, this is a first-rate examination of culture and kinship. This is the kind of read you'll want to make time for.


Price: $21.95
Buy Product Online | Visit Store Home
   

  Related Products


  Are Those Kids Yours? - American Families with Children Adopted from Other Countries
  Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption - Essential collection of adult adoptee essays, poetry and art
  Inside Transracial Adoption - The most thorough examination of transracial adoption ever written


 Other Items from Adoption Issues

  The Post-Adoption Blues: Overcoming the Unforseen Challenges of Adoption - A frank, honest, and uplifting account of adoptive parent stress
  Adoption is a Family Affair: What Relatives and Friends MUST Know - Answers the adoption questions families have
  Attaching in Adoption: Practical Tools for Today's Parents - 
  Are Those Kids Yours? - American Families with Children Adopted from Other Countries
  Inside Transracial Adoption - The most thorough examination of transracial adoption ever written
  Cultures of Transnational Adoption - Edited by Toby Alice Volkman
  The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade - A personal story, a political story that every woman, not just mothers, should read and re-read
  With Eyes Wide Open Book & CD-ROM Combo - International Adoption Preparation
  African-American and Biracial Hair Care - DVD - Hair care help made simple for parents adopting or fostering a transracial child
  Nurturing Adoptions - Creating Resilience after Neglect and Trauma - By Deborah D. Gray - Author of Attaching in Adoption
  Twenty Life Transforming Choices Adoptees Need to Make - A must for all adoptees and their parents

 

  Return To Unique Adoption Gifts and Books at AdoptShoppe

 

 

e-commerce software
E-commerce powered by MonsterCommerce shopping cart software.