ANTH/WMNS 326 Cross cultural families and households
24 March: Adoption
Required readings: Leinaweaver, Jessaca B. (2007) "On moving children: The social implications of Andean child circulation." American Ethnologist. 34(1):163-180 Anthrosource http://www.anthrosource.net/doi/pdfplus/10.1525/ae.2007.34.1.163
Volkman, Toby Alice (2003) "Embodying Chinese Culture: Transnational Adoption in North America." Social Text 21.1 (2003) 29-55 Project Muse. http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/social_text/v021/21.1volkman02.html
What is adoption?
Why does it take place?
How is it related to culture?
Adoption versus fosterage
Under what circumstances is a child defined as adoptable?
- Andes: popular (for fostering or circulation):
- single parenthood, especially single fatherhood
- poverty
- orphans
- the state (for adoption)
- child malnutrition and neglect
- "improperly constituted families"
- orphans
- China:
- abandonment due to one child policy and preference for sons
- here?
Where do the children go and what is the pattern of their relationship to birth kin and others?
- Andes: children go to wealthy relations
- maintain ties with birth kin;
- relationship with others may be companionate or economic
- may go to orphanages as a stop-gap measure
- once in orphanage, may be adopted out permanently within Peru or transnationally
- China: abandonment means no tie to birth kin
- children reared in orphanage, permanently adopted within China, or adopted transnationally
- here?
What linkage is there to political and economic structures?
- Andes: children go from poor, vulnerable families to wealthier families (see also Weismantel)
- may involve transfer of child labour
- fostering allows children to leave very poor households in times of crisis, but maintain ties so that the children may help their birth families when they can
- adoption does not allow this future support to happen
- China: because of abandonment, do not know whether adoptable children come from poor families
- presumably, children go from families which hope for sons, in part for economic reasons (see also Hong Zhang)
- transnationally, children go to wealthy families in wealthy countries
- here? globally? how is adoption linked to political and economic structures?
What is the cultural meaning of children, adoption, fostering, kinship, ...?
- Andes: companionship, support, acostumbrarse, shared food (from Weismantel)
- multiple layers of kin/ways of being a parent or child
- perhaps fostering tells us that children are less about rights of inheritance than about sharing, support, rights and obligations while alive
- China: in China, children are tied to descent, care in old age (from Hong Zhang)
- in the case of transnational adoptees, kinship may distort biology to replace it with "culture," children adopted at same time or from same orphanage, physical symbols of origin, other adoptive families of Chinese children
- also in the case of transnational adoptees, children wanted for companionate/emotional reasons
- role of race
- perhaps existence of adoption with strict rules and laws tells us about importance of inheritance or other rights involved in family membership