Adoptive Migration

Adoptive Migration
Author: Jessaca B. Leinaweaver
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2013-09-06
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0822355078

Spain has one of the highest per capita international adoption rates in the world. Internationally adopted kids are coming from many of the same countries as do the many immigrants who are radically transforming Spain's demographics. Based on interviews with adoptive families, migrant families, and adoption professionals, Jessaca B. Leinaweaver examines the experiences of Latin American children adopted into a rapidly multiculturalizing society. She focuses on Peruvian adoptees and immigrants in Madrid, but her conclusions apply more broadly, to any pairing of adoptees and migrants from the same country. Leinaweaver finds that international adoption, particularly in a context of high rates of transnational migration, is best understood as both a privileged and unusual form of migration, and a crucial and contested method of family formation. Adoptive Migration is a fascinating study of the implications for adopted children of growing up in a country that discriminates against their fellow immigrants.

Babies Without Borders

Babies Without Borders
Author: Karen Dubinsky
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 212
Release: 2010-06-28
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 0814720919

While international adoptions have risen in the public eye and recent scholarship has covered transnational adoption from Asia to the U.S., adoptions between North America and Latin America have been overshadowed and, in some cases, forgotten. In this nuanced study of adoption, Karen Dubinsky expands the historical record while she considers the political symbolism of children caught up in adoption and migration controversies in Canada, the United States, Cuba, and Guatemala. Babies without Borders tells the interrelated stories of Cuban children caught in Operation Peter Pan, adopted Black and Native American children who became icons in the Sixties, and Guatemalan children whose “disappearance” today in transnational adoption networks echoes their fate during the country’s brutal civil war. Drawing from archival research as well as from her critical observations as an adoptive parent, Dubinsky moves debates around transnational adoption beyond the current dichotomy—the good of “humanitarian rescue,” against the evil of “imperialist kidnap.” Integrating the personal with the scholarly, Babies without Borders exposes what happens when children bear the weight of adult political conflicts.

Child Adoption

Child Adoption
Author: United Nations. Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Population Division
Publisher: United Nations Publications
Total Pages: 463
Release: 2009
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9789211514667

Adoption is one of the oldest social institutions. Nevertheless, adoption still raises highly emotive issues because of its fundamental implications for the familial ties. This publication provides a solid foundation for furthering research on child adoption and, more specifically, on the demographic factors that shape the demand for and the availability of adoptable children. The focus of this report is on the nexus between adoption policies and trends at the national and global levels. Understanding adoption policies and their origins is all the more important today because, as adoption has become global, inconsistencies among the legal principles and traditions regarding adoption in different countries are increasingly coming to the fore.--Publisher'sdescription.

Intercountry Adoption

Intercountry Adoption
Author: Karen Smith Rotabi
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 406
Release: 2016-12-05
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 1351927078

Intercountry adoption represents a significant component of international migration; in recent years, up to 45,000 children have crossed borders annually as part of the intercountry adoption boom. Proponents have touted intercountry adoption as a natural intervention for promoting child welfare. However, in cases of fraud and economic incentives, intercountry adoption has been denounced as child trafficking. The debate on intercountry adoption has been framed in terms of three perspectives: proponents who advocate intercountry adoption, abolitionists who argue for its elimination, and pragmatists who look for ways to improve both the conditions in sending countries and the procedures for intercountry transfer of children. Social workers play critical roles in intercountry adoption; they are often involved in family support services or child relinquishment in sending countries, and in evaluating potential adoptive homes, processing applications, and providing support for adoptive families in receiving countries; social workers are involved as brokers and policy makers with regard to the processes, procedures, and regulations that govern intercountry adoption. Their voice is essential in shaping practical and ethical policies of the future. Containing 25 chapters covering the following five areas: policy and regulations; sending country perspectives; outcomes for intercountry adoptees; debate between a proponent and an abolitionist; and pragmatists' guides for improving intercountry adoption practices, this book will be essential reading for social work practitioners and academics involved with intercountry adoption.

Global Families

Global Families
Author: Catherine Ceniza Choy
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2013-10-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1479891169

In the last fifty years, transnational adoption—specifically, the adoption of Asian children—has exploded in popularity as an alternative path to family making. Despite the cultural acceptance of this practice, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the factors that allowed Asian international adoption to flourish. In Global Families, Catherine Ceniza Choy unearths the little-known historical origins of Asian international adoption in the United States. Beginning with the post-World War II presence of the U.S. military in Asia, she reveals how mixed-race children born of Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese women and U.S. servicemen comprised one of the earliest groups of adoptive children. Based on extensive archival research, Global Families moves beyond one-dimensional portrayals of Asian international adoption as either a progressive form of U.S. multiculturalism or as an exploitative form of cultural and economic imperialism. Rather, Choy acknowledges the complexity of the phenomenon, illuminating both its radical possibilities of a world united across national, cultural, and racial divides through family formation and its strong potential for reinforcing the very racial and cultural hierarchies it sought to challenge.

Dangerous Women

Dangerous Women
Author: Ellen W. Gorsevski
Publisher: Troubador Publishing
Total Pages: 378
Release: 2014
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9781783061723

Most of us are familiar with Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's now famous adage, 'Well behaved women rarely make history.' This book explores eleven remarkable women who were deemed 'dangerous' in their respective places and times for taking on a revolutionary idea: that peace is possible by working for justice. For courageous, history-making women to make headway in what are often male-dominated societies, women frequently become masters of the art of persuasion. This book explores the rhetoric, that is, the persuasive communication strategies and tactics used for peacebuilding and social justice, of the eleven women Nobel Peace prize winners since the inception of this internationally renowned award. Their inspiring stories and their bravery, even in the face of death threats, emphasize how saying the right thing at the right time can be both life saving and can make violent, dictatorial regimes tremble. Using these amazing women's experiences as paragons of masterful communication in specific socio-cultural milieus worldwide from the twentieth century to today, this book investigates women peace leaders in the context of international politics and intrigue, and the crucial interrelationships among social justice discourses and rhetorical (suasory) forms of communication. This book's main contribution is exploring nonviolence as a form of communication that is frequently feminized so as to denigrate peacebuilding in societies worldwide. What these women have done is, in effect, taken the brick that was thrown at them - the brick in this case being the prevalent cultural association of women with peace and peace with weakness - and used that 'brick' to build a house in the form of peace and justice activism and successful programs in their respective nations, regions, and internationally. Whereas much of what has been previously written about the women Nobel Peace laureates does not examine their discourses and persuasive strategies specifically, in contrast, this book closely studies their modes of nonviolent rhetoric. Despite the power and might of the international military industrial complex, nonviolent rhetoric doggedly persists in an increasingly globalized public sphere - one in which social justice concerns figure heavily into communication that is spread through international media. In short, this book both celebrates and enables readers to learn from the wisdom of these "dangerous" women whose savvy communication practices foster work in peacebuilding and promoting justice.

International Adoption

International Adoption
Author: Laura Briggs
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2009-07-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0814795900

In the past two decades, transnational adoption has exploded in scope and significance, growing up along increasingly globalized economic relations and the development and improvement of reproductive technologies. A complex and understudied system, transnational adoption opens a window onto the relations between nations, the inequalities of the rich and the poor, and the history of race and racialization, Transnational adoption has been marked by the geographies of unequal power, as children move from poorer countries and families to wealthier ones, yet little work has been done to synthesize its complex and sometimes contradictory effects. Rather than focusing only on the United States, as much previous work on the topic does, International Adoption considers the perspectives of a number of sending countries as well as other receiving countries, particularly in Europe. The book also reminds us that the U.S. also sends children into international adoptions—particularly children of color. The book thus complicates the standard scholarly treatment of the subject, which tends to focus on the tensions between those who argue that transnational adoption is an outgrowth of American wealth, power, and military might (as well as a rejection of adoption from domestic foster care) and those who maintain that it is about a desire to help children in need.

The Children's Bureau Legacy

The Children's Bureau Legacy
Author: Administration on Children, Youth and Families
Publisher: Government Printing Office
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2013-04-01
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 0160917220

Comprehensive history of the Children’s Bureau from 1912-2012 in eBook form that shares the legacy of this landmark agency that established the first Federal Government programs, research and social reform initiatives aimed to improve the safety, permanency and well-being of children, youth and families. In addition to bios of agency heads and review of legislation and publications, this important book provides a critical look at the evolution of the Nation and its treatment of children as it covers often inspiring and sometimes heart-wrenching topics such as: child labor; the Orphan Trains, adoption and foster care; infant and maternal mortality and childhood diseases; parenting, infant and child care education; the role of women's clubs and reformers; child welfare standards; Aid to Dependent Children; Depression relief; children of migrants and minorities (African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans), including Indian Boarding Schools and Indian Adoption Program; disabled children care; children in wartime including support of military families and World War II refugee children; Juvenile delinquency; early childhood education Head Start; family planning; child abuse and neglect; natural disaster recovery; and much more. Child welfare and related professionals, legislators, educators, researchers and advocates, university school of social work faculty and staff, libraries, and others interested in social work related to children, youth and families, particularly topics such as preventing child abuse and neglect, foster care, and adoption will be interested in this comprehensive history of the Children's Bureau that has been funded by the U.S. Federal Government since 1912.