Transnational Adoption: A Cultural Economy of Race, Gender, and Kinship

Each year, thousands of Chinese children, primarily abandoned infant girls, are adopted by Americans. Yet we know very little about the local and transnational processes that characterize this new migration.
Transnational Adoption is a unique ethnographic study of China/U.S. adoption, the largest contemporary intercountry adoption program. Sara K. Dorow begins by situating the popularity of the China/U.S. adoption process within a broader history of immigration and adoption. She then follows the path of the adoption process: the institutions and bureaucracies in both China and the United States that prepare children and parents for each other; the stories and practices that legitimate them coming together as transnational families; the strains placed upon our common notions of what motherhood means; and ways in which parents then construct the cultural and racial identities of adopted children.
Based on rich ethnographic evidence, including interviews with and observation of people on both sides of the Pacific—from orphanages, government officials, and adoption agencies to advocacy groups and adoptive families themselves—this is a fascinating look at the latest chapter in Chinese-American migration.

"1100314128"
Transnational Adoption: A Cultural Economy of Race, Gender, and Kinship

Each year, thousands of Chinese children, primarily abandoned infant girls, are adopted by Americans. Yet we know very little about the local and transnational processes that characterize this new migration.
Transnational Adoption is a unique ethnographic study of China/U.S. adoption, the largest contemporary intercountry adoption program. Sara K. Dorow begins by situating the popularity of the China/U.S. adoption process within a broader history of immigration and adoption. She then follows the path of the adoption process: the institutions and bureaucracies in both China and the United States that prepare children and parents for each other; the stories and practices that legitimate them coming together as transnational families; the strains placed upon our common notions of what motherhood means; and ways in which parents then construct the cultural and racial identities of adopted children.
Based on rich ethnographic evidence, including interviews with and observation of people on both sides of the Pacific—from orphanages, government officials, and adoption agencies to advocacy groups and adoptive families themselves—this is a fascinating look at the latest chapter in Chinese-American migration.

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Transnational Adoption: A Cultural Economy of Race, Gender, and Kinship

Transnational Adoption: A Cultural Economy of Race, Gender, and Kinship

by Sara K. Dorow
Transnational Adoption: A Cultural Economy of Race, Gender, and Kinship

Transnational Adoption: A Cultural Economy of Race, Gender, and Kinship

by Sara K. Dorow

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Overview

Each year, thousands of Chinese children, primarily abandoned infant girls, are adopted by Americans. Yet we know very little about the local and transnational processes that characterize this new migration.
Transnational Adoption is a unique ethnographic study of China/U.S. adoption, the largest contemporary intercountry adoption program. Sara K. Dorow begins by situating the popularity of the China/U.S. adoption process within a broader history of immigration and adoption. She then follows the path of the adoption process: the institutions and bureaucracies in both China and the United States that prepare children and parents for each other; the stories and practices that legitimate them coming together as transnational families; the strains placed upon our common notions of what motherhood means; and ways in which parents then construct the cultural and racial identities of adopted children.
Based on rich ethnographic evidence, including interviews with and observation of people on both sides of the Pacific—from orphanages, government officials, and adoption agencies to advocacy groups and adoptive families themselves—this is a fascinating look at the latest chapter in Chinese-American migration.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780814721476
Publisher: New York University Press
Publication date: 04/01/2006
Series: Nation of Nations , #9
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 331
File size: 3 MB

About the Author

Sara K. Dorow is Professor of Sociology at the University of Alberta. She is the author of When You Were Born in China: A Memory Book for Children Adopted in China and I Wish for You a Beautiful Life: Letters from the Korean Birth Mothers of Ae Ran Won to Their Children.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction: Adoption Moves1. Why China? Identifying Histories 2. Matches Made on Earth: Making Parents and Children for Each Other 3. Picturing Kinship 4. Client, Ambassador, and Gift: Managing Adoption Exchange 5. Shamian Island: Borders of Belonging 6. Storied Origins: Abandonment, Adoption, and Motherhood 7. American Ghosts: Cultural Identities, Racial Constructions Conclusion: Akin to Di?erence Notes Bibliography Index About the Author v
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