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| Barbara Yngvesson |
Law, culture and adoptive tradition in contemporary Brazil Domingos Abreu In this paper will be discuss topics related to the family coexistence right and its relation to different adoption ways in Brazil . The Brazil law pointed out that “it is a duty of the family, the community, the society in general [...] the concrete realization of the referring rights [...] to the familiar and communitarian coexistence. Only in exceptional cases the minor will be included in a family substitute (adoptive). In this paper will be presented different interpretation forms of this legal principle. It will be discussed how different Brazilian society's segments to understand the idea of familiar coexistence and the way in which the Brazilian families perceive the place of the minors and the “brazilian way” to adopt, national and internationally. |
Capacity, suitability and eligibility in intercountry adoption: a challenge for the Spanish Legal System |
Postadoptive attention service in Catalonia . A new public service for new family needs. The challenge of international adoption The spectacular increase of the international adoptions in Catalonia during the last five years constitutes a new complex social challenge that must be considered and that requests an in depth analysis. This is why the Administration, sensible to the new emergent social demands, has assumed the commitment to give an answer adapted to the present and future circumstances of the international adoption. At the Catalan Institute of Fosterage and Adoption, the competent organism in adoption in Catalan territory, there is a public service of advising and psychological and educative support for all adoptive families or adopted people who require it. In this communication will be approached the present reality of the adoption in Catalonia , the objectives of the Service of Postadoptive Attention, the phases in which its implementation has been organized and finally the analysis of the requests attended in this service. |
International adoption: childhood protection or assisted reproduction? In less than ten years Spain has gone from considering international adoption as an option for “adventurous families” to become the main adopting potency of the planet. But this revolution, which is known as the international adoption boom, has taken place without the necessary knowledge of the phenomenon, its objectives, its particularities and risks, and along with an adopting culture maybe not very realistic. With this contribution we are trying to clarify which is the dominant culture of adoption and which are the main motivations to adopt and the social discourses about adoption. We want to focus on how this social reality can be affecting family expectations and, with that, the posterior integration of children. |
Ova giving and receiving |
Preparation and evaluation of international adoption prospective parents: key elements of suitability The adoption is a way of protection to the minor, so the competent administrations must guarantee that the preparation of the applicants and the declaration of suitability, result in a process and valuation that assure the minors' rights. The different areas in which the professionals must work with the future adoptive parents until recognizing them their suitability or not for the adoptive paternity project they initiate, requires a work in depth that constitutes an evaluation in its essence, but also a training and preventive work. The recognition of the differences between the adoptive and biological kinship and the acceptance of the specific necessities of the adopted children, the motivation and the decision to adopt, the agreement into the couple/family and the support of the social context, the recognition of the own resources and the own limitations, the realistic expectations before the arrival of the son/daughter, in addition to the own individual vital trajectory and pair are, among others, key elements of suitability. These elements give information on how a familiar unit will be able to face the arrival of an adoptive child. |
Gay Liberation and Adoption Politics: Whose Rights? Laura Briggs This paper looks at the relationship of gay liberation and adoption politics, beginning with the “Foster Equality” campaign waged by Boston-area activists against Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis in the late 1980s, expanding by 2005 including gay activists throughout the Americas . These movements make an overt queer challenge to the heteronormative nuclear family, insisting that biogenetic relatedness and contemporary conventions of domesticity are not necessary or even important to raising children. The nature of the right-wing Protestant and mainstream Catholic hysteria in response suggest that this is a powerful and perhaps effective challenge to what is most claustrophobic, sexist, and oppressive in the nuclear family. The assertion of a GLBT “right” to adoption raises troubling questions of privilege and politics. A right to whose children? Lisa Duggan has argued that we need to look at how queer politics have been reshaped from a moment when all social movements implicitly endorsed a democratization of wealth to now, when politics are being reshaped by the neoliberal politics of an upward redistribution of wealth. To what extent, then, should we understand LGBT adoption as part of the neoliberal politics of privilege and markets, and to what extent should we understand it as overturning a model of the hetero-patriarchal nuclear family? |
The thick stroke on homosexual kinship profile Anne Cadoret Homosexual parents make differences between the fact of “producing” the child and the role of “educating” him/her. Progenitors are not the parents, or at least they are never the only parents, so, they have to “solve” their filiation. In this contribution we´ll discuss some examples about the way the homosexual parents choose the main figures who are going to give the name of “parents”, and secondary figures who are going to be named differently, looking for a cultural logic that will preside this election. |
Disorders of attachment: visibility, disability and rhetorics of normalcy in transnational adoption discourse This essay considers the emergence of a rhetoric of "attachment disorder" through the historic work of John Bowlby as influenced by psychoanalysts Rene Spitz and Anna Freud in their post-World War 2 work for the World Health Organization (Bowlby) and for an international community of workers in the institutional care of social orphans (Spitz and Freud). Current work on reactive attachment disorder and the psychiatric management of children with cognitive and physical impairments linked to institutionalization will be placed in a critical historical context that emphasizes the place of rhetorics of normalcy as they are built into ideas about parenting and adoption through psychiatric and psychological theories of attachment. Examples from the visual history of adoption will be presented and discussed. |
The international adoption of related children in Quebec (Canada) The province of Quebec in Canada has a high immigration rate, which creates a demand on the part of new immigrants to adopt children from their country and family of origin. Between 1990 and 2004 intra-familial adoption represented between 5.2% and 7.2% of international adoption. In studying this phenomenon my attention was attracted by the following paradox: the particularities of intra-familial adoption are recognized in the Hague Convention (article 29) which states that these adoptions can proceed privately as they involve relatives, who had contacts which each other before the adoption. On the other hand, these are plenary adoptions, involving the re-writing of birth certificates, and confidentiality of files. I argue that rather than creating pluriparentality, adoption of a related child constitutes an extreme form of family recomposition. |
"Secrets and lies": thinking about the impact of institutional delinquency in adoption Anne-Marie Crine The question of origins and the search for them should be considered not only when adoptees put it on the table directly in their adolescence or as young adults-sometimes through a lot of suffering- but much early, from the very beginning of the process. We should think about the effects that personal and/or institutional “secrets and lies,” which more often than not lead to adoption decisions, on the development of adopted persons and on the construction of their identity. |
Rendimiento académico y desarrollo cognitivo en los adoptados internacionales Several studies have documented cognitive developmental disparities and delays in internationally adoptees. These studies have focused on cognitive functions measured by intelligence test performance, others on language development, school performance, and education attainment. There are many more or less adoption specific factors influencing cognitive development in internationally adoptees, In this paper we will look more closely on preadoption factors related to early physical environment, institutionalization, change of environment, change of language, and post adoptive factors such as educational and socioeconomic level of adoptive parents. Further more age of adoption and country of origin may serve as proxies of aggregations of factors influencing cognitive development. Children adopted at a later age are often exposed to a variety of negative pre adoption factors for a longer period of time that those adopted in infancy. The quality of pre adoption conditions and different adoption practice will also influence the cognitive prerequisites of children available for adoption in a given country. Studies have documented higher risk of problem behaviour and mental illness among intercountry adoptees compared to the general population. These findings call for a critical view upon the relationship between internationally adoptees' mental health and their educational achievement and cognitive development. |
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Transnational connections and dissenting views: intercountry adoption in Brazil Using the case of Brazil , I propose, in the following discussion, to look at the adoption of children as a human rights issue, involving the complex interweaving of local and transnational influences. I suggest that the problem of adoption, as presented here, lies at the crux of child rights and class discrimination -- two emergent themes in human rights debates in Brazil . Despite this fact, national adoption is a subject that, until very recently, has been passed over by activists. Much as domestic violence against women was once naturalized as a conflict outside the state sphere of authority, so adoption has been presented as a cut-and-dried humanitarian issue involving, at most, a child's "right" to a family.
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The revision both in the vital and scientific literature cycle coincide in pointing out that the state of the birth of the adoptive family – when the family adopts their child and when their principal task is the family integration – is the weakest and most critical, when the principal difficulties, and the major risks and ruptures exist. What is more, it has repercussions on the future individual and family development. It seems that the result of this stage is related to the good development and social-family adaptation on a long term. Definitely, it is a key moment in the family life. Starting from this evidence we suggested an investigation that seeks to know about the development of this state with the view to suggesting social-educational proposals that favour and preserve the process of family integration, and assure their positive adaptation. In the framework of this investigation here we deal first with a contextualisation of the process of family integration from the theories of stress and its confrontation, and secondly an approach to this integration process referring to the initial adjustment in the child's country of origin and taking as a basis the experiences of a group of international adoptive families as tensors and of strategies used for their resolution. The path towards family integration in international adoption is undertaken via the transition processes, stages in the vital family cycle and contexts. As well as the transition of stages, in international adoption the transition of contexts is important: the child change his/her surroundings to integrate into a new family, and the adoptive family travels to initiate the linking up in their adoptive child's country of origin. The theories of stress and the models of confrontation let us state that the way in which the families perceive the tensors and the repertoire of resources they have, will influence the strategies and confrontation they apply to resolve the situation. At the same time, the positive and negative experiences will accumulate in the form of positive backups (protective factors) or as negative elements or distress (factors of risk) and will influence on the family well-being and its stability.
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Paediatric attention of internationally adopted minors |
Clinical work on post adoption in Italy Jolanda Galli Post adoption is the period of time that goes from the entrance of the adoptive child into the familiar core up to the end of the first two years. Relational dynamics are focused on construction of triangular link father-mother-child. Particular changes of this emotional dimension of every member of the family can be evolutive typed or present conflicts that difficult the filiations process. It is important at this time to have a quick diagnosis to understand the family resources, to see how to overcome difficulties or if the family is at the beginning of a psychopathologic disorder that could be determinant to the failure of the adoptive relationship. The job of parents support groups on the post adoption period and the parallel observation of the children, allows a better understanding of the interactive dynamics during the firsts months of the new family. |
The adoption process and its difficulties: The Catalan case In this presentation we decided to try and transmit short descriptions of what our work as mediators is and the difficulties we find in the daily practice. Throughout the nine years as mediators in international adoption between the Catalan families and the R P. China, in Genus we have observed an evolution of the characteristics of the adoption process, in the volume of applications, in the profile of the families and in the motivations for adoption. All that has conditioned the interventions of the ECAI which has adapted to the new situations. Some questions to be born in mind in this evolution is the increase in adoption applications, the increase in couples with adopted children and the motivations for adoption: infertility, reconstituted couples, more personal reasons and solidarity. Because of these aspects, the mediation task of the ECAI is directed towards the intervention in the adoption process, adapting to the change both in the profile of the applicant families and the origin country.
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Differences and similarities between gays and lesbians wanting children |
Pre-adoption institutionalization and the impact of post-adoption functioning |
Assisted reproduction technologies in heterosexual and homosexual individuals and couples Diana Guerra Díaz According to the Spanish Law 35/1988 about Assisted Reproduction, “every woman older than 18 and in full capacity can be user or recipient of the techniques regulated by this Law, as long as she has presented her written consent to its use in a free, conscious and express manner [...] regardless of her marital status or sexual orientation.” The two amendments -2003 and 2006- made to the Law did not include the maternal subrogation or “rent of womb” as an assisted reproduction technique. It is a decision that anticipates for men or men couples able to marry since July 2005, only heterosexual fatherhood, pre-existing or negotiated, or the access to subrogation outside Spain. With the aim of tangentially illustrate this inequality, this paper analyzes the sociodemographic and psychopathologic characteristics of homosexual and bisexual women who asked for Artificial Insemination of Donor between 1996 and 2006 at the Institut Universitari Dexeus using as a starting point a survey carried out between 171 women, 9,9% homosexual and 8,7% bisexual. |
Be and become family: the lesbian perspective of intimate relationships in Chile The lesbian families relations in Chile will be analyzed in this presentation, that constitutes a doctoral thesis in Social Anthropology. The focus is on the city of Santiago case, basically in the ways to construct lesbian families and on the perception of their members. |
Issues of race in Norwegian transnational adoption Signe Howell There is no predominant discourse on race in contemporary Norway , though there are racist articulations and concomitant accusations of racism. When Norwegian couples began to adopt children from Asia and Latin America in the late 1960s, the question about race was not on the agenda. The adoptees were regarded as tabula rasa who, despite their different physiognomy from the ethnic Norwegians, everyone assumed would turn into Norwegians through their being kinned and transubstantiated by their Norwegian family and society at large. With the increasing arrival of immigrants, including asylum seekers, from the Third World , the picture has become more complex. Race is becoming coded as culture, in particular Islamic culture – and has become politically controversial. However, I shall argue that a dichotomy is discernible in most ethnic Norwegians' thinking about the many “new Norwegians” that inhabit the country, between the adoptees – who are perceived as Norwegian –. |
Maternity in lesbian couples: novelty and persistence of maternal and familiar models
Elixabete Imaz From 1988, the assisted reproduction law allowed the motherhood of the lesbian families, but until recently, the filiations link between mother and child was only recognized just to the biological mother. In recent times, a legislative change allows, through co adoption, the juridical recognition of the non-biological mother. The progressive use from women couples of reproduction techniques in order to become mothers, open an interesting field of discussion and research about the evolution of families and the conception of motherhood. This paper analyses new family, personal and social situations from an anthropological perspective. |
My experience as an adoptive grandmother in Mallorca Elizabeth Ana Kay Stewart In this presentation the author comment her first impressions when one of her daughters and her husband decided to adopt internationally after two treatments of in vitro fertilization and its fears when they began to consider China as country of origin. The author report how, once made the decision, she focus on the process and decided to be part of AFAC mailing list (Association of Chineese Families Adptants of Catalunya). The mail list provided information that was not available in the offices of Social Issues, where neither the civil employees nor the politicians had knowledge about the process. The author will comment how she was part of an Internet chat for the first time in her life and how between the listservs and the chats she made friendship links that she never had imagined. From information finder she moved to information provider. As she will explain, she considers a privilege to be able to support a group of people who, in words of the journalist Rahola, are fragile people. |
Minors' adoption in Russia : international adoption or children transaction? Lilia Khabibullina The number of international adoptions is on rise in Europe, in general, and in Spain , in particular. Russia is the second choice between adoptive families in Catalonia and Spain . Despite of this fact there is a lack of ethnographies devoted to it and Russian context, as context of many other “giving” countries, remain unknown. For this reason my work tends to present some discourses about international adoptions in Russia . It seems that adopted children are often seen as “commodities” in international adoptions practices. The price is often articulated, and it seems that only rich parents can really “afford” children by means of assisted reproduction or international adoption. From the other side, there is a persistent idea to hide the “market” terminology by introducing “gift” rhetoric and usage of salvationist discourse. Along with adoptive parents discourses, framed by “market terminology”, national discourses about children also use rhetoric of “selling national treasures” (Yngvesson,2004). Nevertheless, in Russia there is a resistance to market terminology, as “imposed” by the West, and children in transnational adoption are frequently seen as objects of business and child abuse. |
Adoptees and migrant's routes to the roots. A comparison Caroline Legrand Whereas both adoptees and migrants claim suffering separation and dislocation, very few attempts have been made to compare the way these people act to locate the place and the families where they come from. The aim of this paper is to fill this gap precisely by using ethnographical data that I collected in Ireland . After critically analysing what rootedness means to these two sets of individuals, I will explore the process whereby each of them is searching for origins and fighting to clarify and confirm an identity. |
"We do not have immigrant children at this school; we just have children adopted abroad." Families and social perspectives on minors' "cultural origins" |
Intercountry adoption: a UK perspective on post-adoption issues This paper explores the development of post adoption services for intercountry adoption in the UK looking at the needs of adoptive parents and adopted persons (as children and adults). With the passing of the Adoption and Children Act 2002 and the ratification of the Hague Convention in 2003, Local Authorities in England & Wales are now required to provide the same level of services to intercountry adopters as domestic adopters. However, because intercountry adoption has been on a small scale in the UK post adoption services available to families have been fragmentary around the country and the expertise and support available to parents has differed greatly. Special attention will be paid to the views of adoptive parents and adoptees and published accounts by adopted adults. The issue of “homeland visits” and adoptees' “search for origins” will be addressed alongside the role of central authorities and accredited agencies in providing information to enable adoptees to trace their birth relatives. There will also be reference to the developments in the UK of rights for adopted persons and birth relatives and of a more “open” approach to adoption for all members of the adoption triangle. |
Minors' circulation in Argentina : a central issue in actual debate on minority In Argentine there are sufficient element to confirm that approximately 75% of children who live with non-biological parents, became part of the families through mechanisms not used by the administration and the legislation as adoption. Situations “in fact” of doubtful origin that enter into the legal circuit delayed, suppression of identity by fraudulent inscriptions, and adoptions not regulated in Argentinean legislation are part of that high percentage. In this presentation it will explored the “naturalization” of the informal and/or illegal mechanisms of children circulation in Argentina, its modalities, its psycho-social causes, its economic, judicial and administrative agents, the perception of the biological families and adoptive families and the psycho-social consequences on the childhood, adolescence and adulthood of adoptive children. |
Decision making due to filiations: psychological factors It will explore the factors involved in the decision making by filiations in situations of insemination and adoption. The presentation takes as starting point the study of cases and a specific sampling carried out from field work and that allows us to get closer to a new and emerging reality. |
The social temporalities of inter-country adoption and the limits of the plenary adoption model Françoise-Romaine Ouellette Time related issues are central in the social dynamics of inter-country adoption. I will discuss how they have shaped this field of action since the 1980's, in Quebec ( Canada ), and influenced practices and public debates. Three temporalities will be considered. First, the legal and administrative process which has always been at the core of major controversies between adoptive parents, volunteer groups, agencies and the State. Second, the time of the adopted child's development and its history of attachment relations, which is now a foremost preoccupation brought in the intercountry adoption field by child welfare and medical experts. Third, the time of genealogical transmission (of names, rights, affiliations…) which raises complex questions about identity and belonging, kinship and family, biology and law, culture and nature, etc. Each of these three angles of analysis will help put plenary adoption in critical perspective and add to arguments in favour of more flexible adoption laws. |
Recovery after initial adversity. A study of international adoptees in Spain In order to analyze patterns of recovery after initial adversity, 289 children and their Spanish adoptive families were studied. These children arrived to Spain from six different countries of origin ( China , Colombia , the Russian Federation , Guatemala , India and Romania ). Their physical and psychological development was assessed at time of arrival and an average of three years thereafter. Physical growth and psychological development were seriously affected at time of arrival, with a high proportion of children showing severe delays. All anthropometric measures (height, weight, head circumference) were intercorrelated and there also was a significant correlation between physical growth and psychological development. Pre-adoption variables such as length of institutional exposure were significantly associated with scores at arrival. An average of three years later, there was a clear recovery in a high proportion of children. However, speed and extent of recovery differed from physical growth to psychological development. Actually, while anthropometic measures were still intercorrelated, the correlation between physical and psychological development was not longer significant. Although children's impairment before adoption seems to be synchronic, with physical and psychological aspects being negatively affected at once, patterns of recovery seem to be asynchronic, with recovery being quicker and more complete for physical than for psychological development. |
Transnational maternity: new familiar strategies regarding the feminisation of Latin-American migrations
The feminization of the Ecuatorian migratory flow towards Spain has entailed a transforming process with deep implications at familiar level. Within this international migratory context, there is a change of gender and generational relations, which modifies the negotiation of links within the domestic group, influences in the modalities of familiar regrouping and in the decision making in relation to the definitive establishment or to the return. The place of the transformations of gender and generational relations within migrant's families is a research topic not deeply studied in Europe, particularly in Spain . We talked about specifically to the exercise of transnational maternity from the feminization of the Latin American migratory flows and the migrant origins youth's construction of multiple identities. The conception of the transnational maternity contradicts the models of middle-class maternity in central countries and the ideological notions of maternity in Latin America . At the beginnings of XXI century, Ecuatorian transnational mothers and their families are constructing new spaces, expanding national limits and improvising maternity strategies, facts that appears as an odyssey with high costs. |
The family or the families. A model ruled by Gods or a human association to face daily life? The different religions have wanted and want to control, not only the acts but the human will; this is the great force they have to unify human groups: the fear or obedience to the people representing the transcendent. In XXI century, and remembering the lessons of history, we considered if that kind of “a priori” based organization (not necessarily logical, nor demonstrable) imposed by religions, are and can constitute the foundation of the social organization and, therefore, of the familiar base in present societies. We must undo the equivalence moral/religion. Finally, when approaching the spiritual dimension of the person, will be necessary to see the familiar implications that are possible to be found, and to what extent is licit that the religion defines the familiar model and what authority can have a religion to put in doubt or to catalogue of immoral a family organization decided by its members. The analysis of the family forced us to speak about families, and therefore, to see the necessity to break the stereotypes that create conflict between those who approach the model and those that moves away of him. |
"Me, chocolate; daddy, cookie." Adoption and racial stereotypes: the families' experience |
International Adoption: Law, Custom, Kinship I will provide a theoretical framework for considering the impact of international adoption on conceptions of parenthood, family, and kinship. I will examine processes of accommodation and compromise, as the institutions and accompanying meanings accorded to “transferring children” intersect and impinge upon one another. The argument will be both historical and comparative, moving from colonialism and its impact on forms of “having children” to the contemporary situation of global movements of adults and children, as well as of ideologies of parenthood and kinship. I will compare the complexities that arise as law meets custom, global meets local, in different regions. Finally, inasmuch as the transfer of children, under whatever rubrics, transforms notions of parenthood and family, I will conclude by suggesting the ways in which international adoption may radically revise cultural interpretations of kinship and identity. |
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This paper explores the implications of developments in intercountry adoption worldwide in the early years of the 21st century, based on a demographic analysis of trends in numbers and rates in 20 receiving States between 1998 and 2004. The incidence of ICA in States of origin has been estimated using data from these 20 countries. The analysis shows a marked increase in the global number of intercountry adoptions over the five years, with an estimated minimum of 45,000 officially recorded adoptions in the 20 States by 2004, which represents an increase of 41 per cent since 1998. Recent growth is most evident in the number of children adopted from China and Russia and the number going to Spain (270% increase since 1998) and Ireland (170%). Standardisation against number of births indicates that in 2004 the receiving States with the highest “rate” were Norway and Spain : the lowest rate was in the UK . Reasons for these differences will be explored. The highest rates for States of origin in 2003 were in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, closely followed by South Korea and Guatemala – China and India sent large numbers but had very low rates. |
How to incluye and deal with the family diversity in the initial training and educants It is an obvious remark to state that family diversity is one of the characteristics of our society but it also is to state that students of careers linked to education possess ideas, conceptions and beliefs about the types of family structures and how families educate their children, that often to not include this heterogeneousness and that have little or nothing to do with these new realities. In this presentation we analyse how to include the treatment of this family diversity in the initial training programmes both designing subjects that deal with it at a specific and transversal level, and also raising, at a method level, situations and experiences for learning that permit the students to construct, widen and/or consolidate instrumental responsibilities, at an interpersonal and systematic level via which they can analyse, reflect incorporate, modify and study profoundly the conceptual, procedure and attitude contents linked to the diversity of family structures and the conceptions and beliefs about how different families educate their children. The experience carried out over six years has let us observe how one can modify, from an initial training, the conceptions, ideas and prejudices existing about family structures and how the families educate their children. Therefore we think that as well as specific subjects that deal with these concepts, the initial training of teachers and educators a a transversal level, from all the subjects learning experiences and situations should be included that permit dealing with this diversity and contribute together to modify conceptions, stereotypes and prejudices that are erroneous. |
Homosexual families: the right to adoption 19th of April 2005, the official newspaper of the Generalist of Catalunya published the law 3/2005, one of the most important legal reforms concerning family matters in a number of years. The reform grows from the general and international principal of the right of the child's supremacy, and from a modern conception of adoption as a civil institution of the protection of infants. As it couldn't be any other way the right to adoption only exists under the coordinates I have expressed, and in relation to the adopted person; who is the one with the right to grow up in a family environment in an atmosphere of happiness, love, understanding, and therefore consequently has the right to be adopted. Therefore the individual adult does not have the right to adopt a child. The reform thus establishes couples of the same sex can be considered as families when applying for adoption. The law 3/2005 recognizes this right of homosexuals, and resulting with the end of discrimination between heterosexual and homosexual couples. According to our code both have the same opportunities when considered as families for adoption. This is done with consent of the European Parliament's resolution, council directives of the European Union and especially the fundamental rights of the EU. Furthermore 3/2005 follows the examples set by other provinces of the Spanish state such as Navarra and Aragón, and also other European countries such as Holland , Sweden and the United Kingdom .
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Homomaternity: from personal experience to collective fight The family is a unit of cohabitation based on love solidarity and mutual care promoting the personal development of each one of its members. It is loe that creates a family, no more, no less. This statement that sounds so simple was not applicable 20 years ago, when on deciding who would be my partner, a woman of course, I was aware that I was entering into secrecy and rejection. As doors were closed to me for having a family like anyone else I was aware that doors were also closing on motherhood. Society had taken good care of transmitting that if you are a lesbian you cannot be a mother. It has taken me 9 years of living together, of shared dreams, love, self affirming our identity as a lesbian couple,.... to realise that there is no valid reason why we shouldn't seriously plan our motherhood. Our great wish would become our project, and we took the decision, possibly the most important decision in our lives: we wanted to be mothers and we would do everything possible to become mothers. At first it was a solitary project, without knowing that other people existed in the world, as always happens, and later we put our common project for lesbian motherhood in contact with other female couples. Now society is aware of the diversity of family models that exist these days: heterosexual, homo-maternal, homo-paternal, separated, single, common law couple families and it must be accepted that children grow up in any of these situations. We homo-maternal families are not new family models; we are models that have always existed probably hidden in different ways. What there is now is a real visibilisation of these models. |
Being a daughter of lesbians. Homoparental family from children views The lecturer is going to talk briefly about her biography, the changes of their situation: social, public and political debate; the new law. What the growing of children into homoparental family is like: the feeling they live with and their evolution. Their own and external personal, family and social responsibilities on their way of life and emotional health. The experience of adoption as mothers, sister and daughter. Silence and word. The job of the associations. |
Crossing Borders, Seeking Connections: Chinese Adoptions in the United States In the past decade, 50,000 children born in China have been adopted to the United States , a movement across national borders that is part of a growing wave of transnational adoption involving many other countries as well. This paper examines how Chinese adoption to the US reflects broader shifts in discourses and practices around adoption in North America, and how families with children adopted from China have struggled with the tension between genetic and social relatedness. As a window into this tension, the paper focus on recent efforts to find biological siblings, through DNA testing. |
"Traveling Home in Both Directions": Rethinking "Family" in an Adopted World International conventions and domestic adoption laws in Euro-American nations regulate the construction of adoptive families through a series of legal fictions. The most significant of these is the principle of the legal clean break, which cancels a child's ties to pre-adoptive kin and incorporates him or her into the adoptive family (and adoptive nation) “as if” s/he were the family's (the nation's) “own.” At the same time, the very “as if” dimension that makes a family and nation “adoptive” means that it is always incomplete (never quite real), engaging parents and their children in efforts to realize themselves in and through such activities as roots trips, heritage tours, and reunions with the birth parent(s) and extended (biogenetic) family of an adopted child. Drawing on research with transnationally adopted adults and their families in Sweden and the United States, and on memoirs and films produced by adopted adults who have reunited with (officially nonexistent) kin, I focus on the productivity of this space of erasure, where biology is both cancelled and discovered anew as a site of surface (dis)connection, and continuity is produced over time (like the adoptive family) in a series of returns. My work suggests some of the ways that familiar cultural forms (the nation, the family, the Swedish, and so forth) are reconfigured by the presence of a child (and later an adult) whose quality as “almost the same, but not quite” confounds any sense of what a biological family (or native land) might naturally be. |
