Unequal Motherhoods and the Adoption of Asian Children: Birth, Foster, and Adoptive Mothers
This book explores a deeply personal aspect of globalization: the adoption of Asian children by white Americans. It is based on dozens of interviews with adoptive mothers and adoption social workers, nearly two hundred letters and essays written by Korean birth mothers who put their children up for adoption, and field work at an adoption agency in South Korea. It also includes analyses and explanations of U.S. and South Korean governments’ social characteristics and policies regarding adoptions and how relations between nations have affected international adoption. The book focuses on whether the commonly held notion that adoptions are to serve children’s welfare and their best interests has tended to render gendered aspects of international adoptions invisible. Factors such as gender inequality, social control of women’s reproductive power, patriarchic family structure, and social beliefs concerning womanhood and motherhood that affect international adoptions are revealed in this book. The multiple ways in which adoptive, birth, and foster mothers experience gender oppression from their different social positions of class, race, and nationality are explored and the interdependencies and inequalities of the motherhoods of these three groups of women are brought to light.
1124677837
Unequal Motherhoods and the Adoption of Asian Children: Birth, Foster, and Adoptive Mothers
This book explores a deeply personal aspect of globalization: the adoption of Asian children by white Americans. It is based on dozens of interviews with adoptive mothers and adoption social workers, nearly two hundred letters and essays written by Korean birth mothers who put their children up for adoption, and field work at an adoption agency in South Korea. It also includes analyses and explanations of U.S. and South Korean governments’ social characteristics and policies regarding adoptions and how relations between nations have affected international adoption. The book focuses on whether the commonly held notion that adoptions are to serve children’s welfare and their best interests has tended to render gendered aspects of international adoptions invisible. Factors such as gender inequality, social control of women’s reproductive power, patriarchic family structure, and social beliefs concerning womanhood and motherhood that affect international adoptions are revealed in this book. The multiple ways in which adoptive, birth, and foster mothers experience gender oppression from their different social positions of class, race, and nationality are explored and the interdependencies and inequalities of the motherhoods of these three groups of women are brought to light.
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Unequal Motherhoods and the Adoption of Asian Children: Birth, Foster, and Adoptive Mothers

Unequal Motherhoods and the Adoption of Asian Children: Birth, Foster, and Adoptive Mothers

by Jungyun Gill Stonehill College
Unequal Motherhoods and the Adoption of Asian Children: Birth, Foster, and Adoptive Mothers

Unequal Motherhoods and the Adoption of Asian Children: Birth, Foster, and Adoptive Mothers

by Jungyun Gill Stonehill College

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Overview

This book explores a deeply personal aspect of globalization: the adoption of Asian children by white Americans. It is based on dozens of interviews with adoptive mothers and adoption social workers, nearly two hundred letters and essays written by Korean birth mothers who put their children up for adoption, and field work at an adoption agency in South Korea. It also includes analyses and explanations of U.S. and South Korean governments’ social characteristics and policies regarding adoptions and how relations between nations have affected international adoption. The book focuses on whether the commonly held notion that adoptions are to serve children’s welfare and their best interests has tended to render gendered aspects of international adoptions invisible. Factors such as gender inequality, social control of women’s reproductive power, patriarchic family structure, and social beliefs concerning womanhood and motherhood that affect international adoptions are revealed in this book. The multiple ways in which adoptive, birth, and foster mothers experience gender oppression from their different social positions of class, race, and nationality are explored and the interdependencies and inequalities of the motherhoods of these three groups of women are brought to light.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781498509633
Publisher: Lexington Books
Publication date: 12/13/2016
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 170
File size: 2 MB

About the Author

Jungyun Gill is assistant professor of sociology at Stonehill College.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Mothers and Motherhoods in International Adoptions
1. Historical and Social Contexts of the Institutionalization of Korea-to-US Adoption: A Global Feminist Sociological Imagination Approach
2. Birth Mothers in Korea
3. Foster Mothers in Korea
4. Adoptive Mothers in the United States5. Adoptive and Birth Mothers’ Adoption Storytelling
Conclusion: Unequal Motherhoods in International Adoptions
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