Global Families, Inequality and Transnational Adoption

Högbacka, Riitta

doi:10.1057/978-1-137-52476-8

Cited by 16 publications

(8 citation statements)

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“…Adoption is even depicted as "saving" these abandoned children, who are seen as languishing in institutions (Varnis 2001). In reality, children's homes may be used by birth mothers as temporary safe places for children while the mothers try to find jobs or otherwise seek to improve their material situations (Högbacka 2016).…”

Section: Removing the Mothers From The Picturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…There was a very strong wish and a belief that one day they would meet their child again, that the child would return when of age. The future return of the child was mentioned by many of the first mothers who received letters and/or photographs through social workers, and by many of those who were still pregnant and had made adoption plans (see Högbacka 2016). The mothers made comments such as the following, which highlighted the continuing tie between the child and the original kin.…”

Section: Removing the Mothers From The Picturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Its affluence is created in part from holding the South back (Castles 2003, 18;Pratt 2002, 29). The Global North and the adopting nations are thus implicated in the maintaining of material disparities in the South and the countries of origin, which is in the background of most adoptions (Högbacka 2016;Bos 2007;Fonseca 2011;Giberti 2000;Roby & Matsumura 2002). Material poverty is then used as a justification for adoption (see Smolin 2007a).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…In what ways does the adoption system contribute to the formation of the pool of abandoned children? I draw on interviews with South African adoption social workers and birth mothers from my larger study on inequality and transnational adoption (Högbacka 2016). I will specifically utilise the interviews with 10 adoption social workers and 35 birth mothers I conducted in four locations in South Africa during [2006][2007][2008][2009].…”

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confidence: 99%

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Intercountry adoption and the social production of abandonment

Högbacka

2017

International Social Work

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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.

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Section: Removing the Mothers From The Picturementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Removing the Mothers From The Picturementioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Intercountry adoption and the social production of abandonment

Högbacka

2017

International Social Work

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“…;Kim 2010;McKee 2019;Oh 2015;Nelson 2016;Pate 2014;Trenka et al 2005;Tuan and Shiao 2013;Woo 2019;Jacobs 2011;Fanshel 1972;Jacobs 2014;Högbacka 2016;Palmer 2010). …”

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Shape Shifting: Toward a Theory of Racial Change

Spickard

2022

Genealogy

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We are accustomed to thinking of identities—racial, ethnic, often religious—as if they were permanent, unalterable features of individuals and groups. The theory enunciated here is directed to illumine individuals and groups whose lives are more complicated than that. Such people are shape shifters. At different times in their lives, or over generations in their families and communities, their identities have changed from one group to another. This article sets out an agenda for understanding the phenomenon of racial or other primary identity change. It seeks to understand what kinds of circumstances produce racial change, what sorts of people and groups are likely to change identities, what processes facilitate identity change, and what kinds of work that change is doing. It describes three major intertwined processes at work. Sometimes it is mainly a matter of changes in context and the menu of identities that are available. Sometimes changes in identity are imposed by governments, by institutions, or by society at large. And sometimes it is an individual’s, a family’s, or an entire ethnic group’s choice to make a change. The complexity and contingency of these processes may tend to diminish our commitment to the very idea of social inquiry as science.

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Adoptees relearning their heritage languages: A postcolonial reading of language and dialogue in transnational adoption

Adhikari-Sacré

Cawayu

Clemente‐Martínez

2022

J Adolescent & Adult Lit

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This theoretical article reflects on a recent development in adult literacy studies: transnational adoptees relearning their heritage languages. Literacy and adoption scholars have studied the replacement of the heritage language with a second language and reported it as a permanent loss. Returning to the country of origin, return adoptees challenge such notion by relearning the heritage language as part of their homecoming. We explore how this heritage language relearning could be seen as a renegotiation of the language hierarchies between the adoptive community and the community of origin of languages in the relationship between the adoptive region and the region of origin. Building on Gayatri Chakrabarty Spivak’s “Enabling Violation” concept, we deploy a postcolonial perspective on understanding heritage language relearning in transnational adoptees. We discuss how language relearning can challenge and reproduce the asymmetrical relation between adoptees’ position in the Global North and their first families in the Global South. We argue that heritage language relearning can open the door for adoptees to engage with transnational literacy, carving out global learning trajectories and reconnecting their adoptive and first world. The last section of this article discusses adoption organisations’ dialectic response to this shift by partaking in the organisation of heritage language classes for adoptees. We argue that adult education centres and literacy educators can play a pivotal role in further institutionalising these heritage language classes for transnational adoptees.

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Global Families, Inequality and Transnational Adoption

Cited by 16 publications

References 0 publications

Intercountry adoption and the social production of abandonment

Intercountry adoption and the social production of abandonment

Shape Shifting: Toward a Theory of Racial Change

Adoptees relearning their heritage languages: A postcolonial reading of language and dialogue in transnational adoption

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