Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T11:25:55.606Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Intercountry Adoption and the Inappropriate/d Other: Refusing the Disappearance of Birth Families

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 April 2012

Damien W. Riggs
Damien W. Riggs*
Affiliation:
School of Social and Policy Studies, Flinders University E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Dominant social norms relating to families shape the lives of all people. This can have negative effects upon non-traditional families. This is especially the case in terms of adoption, where a focus solely on the adoptive family can often result in the ‘disappearance’ of the birth family. This paper explores the location of birth families in relation to adoptive families by examining a sample of children's storybooks aimed at adoptive children living with lesbian or gay parents as but one example of how policy makers may come to identify dominant cultural norms that circulate about birth families in the context of intercountry adoption. A number of key tropes are identified across these books, namely the ghostly presence of birth families, and the representation of birth parents as deviant (thus warranting the removal of their children).

Keywords

Intercountry adoptiongay and lesbian parentingbirth familieschildren's literature
Type
Themed Section on Waiting for a Better World: Critical and Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Intercountry Adoption
Information
Social Policy and Society , Volume 11 , Issue 3 , July 2012 , pp. 455 - 464
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ayres, S. (2004) ‘The hand that rocks the cradle: how children's literature reflects motherhood, identity, and international adoption’, Texas Wesleyan Law Review, 10, 315–42.Google Scholar
Blackman, L. and Walkerdine, V. (2001) Mass Hysteria: Critical Psychology and Media Studies, Hampshire: Palgrave.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chapman, E. L. and Wright, C. (2008) ‘Provision of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans (LGBT) materials for young people in UK public and secondary school libraries’, in McNicol, S. (ed.), Forbidden Fruit: The Censorship of Literature and Information for Young People, Boca Raton: BrownWalker, pp. 19–40.Google Scholar
Crisp, T. (2011) ‘The problem with Rainbow Boys’, in Abate, M. A. and Kidd, K. (eds.), Over the Rainbow: Queer Children's and Young Adult Literature, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, pp. 215–68.Google Scholar
Day, F. A. (2000) Lesbian and Gay Voices: An Annotated Bibliography and Guide to Literature for Children and Young Adults, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
de Haan, L. and Nijland, S. (2002) King and King, California: Tricycle Press.Google Scholar
de Haan, L. and Nijland, S. (2004) King and King and Family, California: Tricycle Press.Google Scholar
Fronek, P. and Cuthbert, D. (2011) ‘The future of inter-country adoption: a paradigm shift for this century’, International Journal of Social Welfare, doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2397.2011.00799.x.Google Scholar
Jenkins, C. A. (2011) ‘Young adult novels with gay/lesbian characters and themes, 1969–1992: a historical reading of content, gender, and narrative distance’, in Abate, M. A. and Kidd, K. (eds.), Over the Rainbow: Queer Children's and Young Adult Literature, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, pp. 147–63.Google Scholar
Manley, K. L. (2006) ‘Birth parents: the forgotten members of the international adoption triad’, Capital University Law Review, 35, 627–61.Google Scholar
Merchant, E. (2010) Dad David, baba Chris and ME, London: British Association for Adoption and Fostering.Google Scholar
Modell, J. (2002) A Sealed and Secret Kinship: The Culture of Policies and Practices in American Adoption, New York: Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Newman, L. (2002) Felicia's Favorite Story, Pennsylvania: Two Lives Publishing.Google Scholar
Richardson, J. and Parnell, P. (2005) And Tango Makes Three, New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Riggs, D. W. (2010) What about the Children! Masculinities, Sexualities and Hegemony, Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press.Google Scholar
Riggs, D. W. (2009) ‘Race privilege and its role in the “disappearance” of birth families and adoptive children in debates over adoption by non-heterosexual people in Australia’, in Spark, C. and Cuthbert, D. (eds.), Other People's Children: Adoption in Australia, Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, pp. 161–75.Google Scholar
Riggs, D. W. (2007) Becoming Parent: Lesbians, Gay Men, and Family, Teneriffe: Post Pressed.Google Scholar
Riggs, D. W. and Augoustinos, M. (2007) ‘Learning difference: representations of diversity in storybooks for children of lesbian and gay parents’, Journal of GLBT Family Studies, 3, 1, 81–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sapp, J. (2010) ‘A review of gay and lesbian themed early childhood children's literature’, Australian Journal of Early Childhood, 35, 1, 32–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shannahan, D. (2010) ‘Heather has two mommies and they're both Caucasian and moneyed: unsaid in international “queer” children's literature’, Dark Matter, 7, http://www.darkmatter101.org/site/2010/09/28/heather-has-two-mommies/ [accessed 30.01.2012].Google Scholar
Stafford, A. (2009) ‘Beyond normalization: an analysis of heteronormativity in children's picture books’, in Epstein, R. (ed.), Who's the Daddy? And Other Writings on Queer Parenting, Toronto: Sumach, pp. 169–78.Google Scholar
Trinh, T. M. (1987) ‘She, the inappropriate/d other’, Discourse, 8, winter, 1–37.Google Scholar
Yngvesson, B. (2010) Belonging in an Adopted World: Race, Identity and Transnational Adoption, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar