“You don't take anything for granted”: The role of anthropology in improving services, policies, and parenting practices for adoptive families

Abstract

This article examines the impact of the transnational adoption research of an interdisciplinary group of researchers (AFIN). Since 2004, AFIN has successfully developed several research projects with the participation of practitioners and adoptive families and their associations. AFIN uses an ethnographic method and an anthropological perspective—which provides insights on transnational adoption, politics, and professional culture in Spain. This combination has resulted in a substantial body of knowledge as well as the recognition of opportunities for and challenges to building bridges among academics, policy makers, practitioners, and adoptive families in order to increase the wellbeing of families. We suggest that engagement and collaboration with family associations might offer the best chance for social anthropological research to have an influence on family public policies and practices in Spain.

‘Homework’ and transnational adoption screening in Spain: the co‐production of home and family

“…Families not in need of reproductive assistance, of which adoption is one form, may adapt as necessary to the economic crisis—for example, by moving back into the three-generation households that were abandoned a generation ago, or by improvising a response to unemployment through creative uses of AirBnB or Workaway. But adoptive parents, because they require bureaucratic assistance to form a family, come directly under the supervision of the state (San Román et al 2015; compare Friedman & Clark 2000:3). Their interpretations of what state representatives expect to see in their homes have shown us what housing means in Spain.…”