Sonja van Wichelen boldly describes how contemporary justifications of cross-border adoption navigate between child welfare, humanitarianism, family making, capitalism, science, and health. Focusing on contemporary institutional practices of adoption in the United States and the Netherlands, she traces how professionals, bureaucrats, lawyers, politicians, social workers, and experts legitimate a practice that became progressively controversial.
Sonja van Wichelen boldly describes how contemporary justifications of cross-border adoption navigate between child welfare, humanitarianism, family making, capitalism, science, and health. Focusing on contemporary institutional practices of adoption in the United States and the Netherlands, she traces how professionals, bureaucrats, lawyers, politicians, social workers, and experts legitimate a practice that became progressively controversial.
Sonja van Wichelen is a senior research fellow with the department of sociology and social policy at the University of Sydney in Australia. She is the author of Religion, Gender and Politics in Indonesia: Disputing the Muslim Body.
Inhaltsangabe
Contents List of figures, tables and images Acknowledgements
Introduction: Adoption in the Age of Globalization and Biotechnology 1. The Ethical Market: Between Reproduction and Humanitarianism
2. Double Movements: International Law as Transparency Device
3. Valuing Bodies: Somatic Ethics in the Biomedicalization of Adoption
4. Grievable Lives: The Adoptee and the Child Migrant 5. Economies of Return: Openness, Knowledge, Relations Conclusion: Legitimating Life
