Kinship Paths to and from the New Europe: A Unified Analysis of Peruvian Adoption and Migration

Abstract

This article compares migrants and adoptees of Peruvian origin residing in Europe by focusing on their respective movements out of and return to the sending country of Peru. First, it analyzes family-based reunifications by drawing on a framework from studies of adoption and kinship. Juxtaposing the experiences of adoptees with those of migrants reveals how migration, too, may be steeped in concerns about kin ties. Next, it analyzes returns of adult adoptees using a template modeled on migrant returns, focusing on the centrality of the notion of contribution. The article shows how migrants and adoptees contest the constraints of European nation-state definitions of kinship intended to limit migration. It is based on recent research with Peruvian migrants and adoptees in Spain, as well as longer-term research in Peru on migration and adoption.

Geographies of migration and relatedness: transmigrancy in open transnational adoptive parenting

“…Transnational adoption can benefit from a similar move by reconceptualizing the adoptee away from clean break/rooted child essentialist frameworks toward (1) recognizing transnational adoptees as transnational immigrants who are (2) embedded in a multiplicity of simultaneous relations across national borders. Leinaweaver (2011Leinaweaver ( , 2013 subtly draws parallels between the experiences of the so-called 'second-generation migrants' and adoptees who may return to or have feelings of obligation towards a country they have never known but 'are nonetheless associated with on a daily basis ' (2011, p. 391). She describes the pressure that both groups feel to develop a certain affinity with that country (2013).…”

“…1 On the one hand, there is a clear tendency to legally and discursively distance adoptive children from immigrants (De Graeve, 2013b;Leinaweaver, 2011Leinaweaver, , 2013Tigervall & Hübinette, 2010;Yngvesson, 2010Yngvesson, , 2012. Current transnational adoption practice, in contrast to other migration practices, legally disconnects the adoptee-migrant from her pre-adoptive, pre-migration past by incorporating her into the adoptive family and nation 'as if' she were born in that family and nation (Modell, 1994;Yngvesson, 2012).…”

“…On the other hand, however, the prevailing adoption discourse emphasizes the necessity of symbolically or actually reconnecting newly constituted families to children's birth countries through return trips (Ahluwalia, 2007;Leinaweaver, 2011;Yngvesson, 2003Yngvesson, , 2010, charity work (Brysk, 2004;Leinaweaver, 2011) and culture work (Anagnost, 2000;Castañeda, 2011;De Graeve, 2013a;Jacobson, 2008;Marre, 2007;Seligmann, 2009;Volkman, 2003;Willing, 2010). The paradigm of 'the rooted child' no longer construes the adopted child as freestanding from her pre-adoption past; rather, it emphasizes the adoptee's essential connection to her country and culture of birth (see also [Willing et al] this issue).…”

The Quiet Migration Redux: International Adoption, Race, and Difference

“…Scaling up further, the nation that incorporates adopted children may technically count them as little immigrants, as is the case in the United States. Indeed, the legal framework of family reunification migration is also used to bring adopted children into Spain (Leinaweaver 2011). Yet, that same nation may develop models of immigrant incorporation that do not incorporate adopted youth, suggesting that this is an imperfect fit.…”

‘They Have Our Culture’: Negotiating Migration in Belgian–Ethiopian Transnational Adoption

“…This article aims at making a novel contribution to a recently emerging literature (Yngvesson 2010;Leinaweaver 2011) that aims at bridging some of these conceptual and research divides. I investigate how migration is negotiated in relation to transnational adoptees and, through the lens of transnational adoption, explore the ideological values that bolster the discourse on immigrants.…”