Intercountry adoption and the social production of abandonment

Abstract

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.

Irregular adoptions in the Ethiopian-Spanish context: Strategies to redress the adoption triad

“…Adoption studies from a postcolonial approach, such as Högbacka’s (2017) work on South Africa, demonstrate how intercountry adoption practices contribute to the creation of child abandonment scenarios among those born to impoverished and distressed biological mothers, who might have opted for temporary childcare solutions if given a choice. This is particularly relevant in the Ethiopian context, one of the poorest countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, with a Human Development Index ranking of 175 among 189 countries (PNUD, 2021).…”

“…This constructed narrative about orphans and abandoned children is conditioned by discourses portraying adoption as a rescue mission, allowing children to live with better-off middle-class families from the Global North. In adopting them, these families are seen as performing an act of love and generosity (Högbacka, 2017).…”

Un archivo para repensar distintas formas de violencia: maternidades sospechadas, interrumpidas y acalladas en Argentina

“…De este modo, posibilitará construir conocimiento respecto de la situación de algunas de esas madres de origen o madres biológicas que habitualmente permanecen ausentes en los relatos e investigaciones sobre la adopción de niños/as. De hecho, sobre la figura de la madre biológica, madre de origen o madre de nacimiento (Högbacka 2017) resulta complejo acceder a información sobre cómo, por qué y de qué forma https://doi.org/10.7440/antipoda54.2024.05 estas mujeres tramitan estas complejas y dilemáticas decisiones. Como sostienen Irene Salvo Agoglia y Beatriz San Román (2019, 2), "en el contexto latinoamericano […] las experiencias de las madres, sus saberes y sus posiciones han permanecido invisibilizados y ausentes, tanto en los trabajos científicos sobre adopción como en las prácticas familiares e institucionales" 14 .…”

The Complexities of Mixed Families: Transracial Adoption as a Humanitarian Project

“…Similarly, within the international adoption world, children in the Global South are understood as in need by prospective adoptive parents who may view adoption as providing them with a venue to both opportunity and civility (Dorow 2006). This messaging is echoed by adoption agencies and state actors themselves in the ways in which children are shaped into valuable resources and marketed as available for adoption to families in the Global North (Hogbacka 2019;Yngvesson 2000).…”