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Cross-Cultural Approaches to Adoption

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Cross-Cultural Approaches to Adoption Cross-Cultural Approaches to Adoption Adoption is currently subject to a great deal of media scrutiny. High- profile cases of international adoption via the internet and other unofficial routes have drawn attention to the relative ease with which children can be obtained on the global circuit, and have brought about legislation which regulates the exchange of children within and between countries. However, a scarcity of research into cross-cultural attitudes to child- rearing, and a wider lack of awareness of cultural difference in adoptive contexts, has meant that the assumptions underlying Western childcare policy are seldom examined or made explicit. The articles in Cross- Cultural Approaches to Adoption look at adoption practices from Africa, Oceania, Asia, South and Central America, including examples of societies in which children are routinely separated from their biological parents or passed through several foster families. Showing the range and flexibility of the child-rearing practices that approximate to the Western term ‘adop- tion’, they demonstrate the benefits of a cross-cultural appreciation of family life, and allow a broader understanding of the varied relationships that exist between children and adoptive parents. Fiona Bowie is Senior Lecturer and Head of Anthropology at the University of Bristol. Her books include The Anthropology of Religion: An Introduction. European Association of Social Anthropologists Series Facilitator: Sarah Pink, University of Loughborough The European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) was inaugurated in January 1989, in response to a widely felt need for a professional association that would represent social anthropologists in Europe and foster co-operation and interchange in teaching and research. The Series brings together the work of the Association’s members in a series of edited volumes which originate from and expand upon the biennial EASA Conference. Titles in the series are: Conceptualizing Society Fieldwork and Footnotes Adam Kuper (ed.) Han F. Vermeulen and Arturo Alvarez Roldán (eds) Other Histories Kirsten Hastrup (ed.) Syncretism/Anti-syncretism Charles Stewart and Rosalind Shaw Alcohol, Gender and Culture (eds) Dimitra Gefou-Madianou (ed.) Grasping the Changing World Understanding Rituals Václav Hubinger (ed.) Daniel de Coppet (ed.) Civil Society Gendered Anthropology Chris Hann and Elizabeth Dunn (eds) Teresa del Valle (ed.) Anthropology of Policy Cris Shore and Susan Wright (eds) Social Experience and Anthropological Knowledge Nature and Society Kirsten Hastrup and Peter Hervik Philippe Descola and Gisli Palsson (eds) (eds) The Ethnography of Moralities Audit Cultures Signe Howell (ed.) Marilyn Strathern (ed.) Gender, Agency and Change Inside and Outside the Law Victoria Ana Goddard (ed.) Olivia Harris (ed.) Anthropological Perspectives Natural Enemies on Local Development John Knight (ed.) Simone Abram and Jacqueline Anthropology of Violence and Waldren (eds) Conflict Recasting Ritual Bettina E. Schmidt and Ingo W. Felicia Hughes-Freeland and Mary M. Schröder (eds) Crain (eds) Realizing Community Locality and Belonging Vered Amit (ed.) Nadia Lovell (ed.) Reframing Pilgramage Constructing the Field Simon Coleman and John Eade (eds) Vered Amit (ed.) Cross-Cultural Approaches to Dividends of Kinship Adoption Peter P. Schweitzer (ed.) Fiona Bowie (ed.) Cross-Cultural Approaches to Adoption Edited by Fiona Bowie First published 2004 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxfordshire OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004. © 2004 Fiona Bowie for selection and editorial material; individual contributors for their contributions All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-203-64370-4 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-67009-4 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0–415–30350–8 (hbk) ISBN 0–415–30351–6 (pbk) Jonathan Robert Telfer 8 December 1953–22 September 2002 This book is dedicated to the memory of Jon Telfer, one of the stalwart participants at a panel on Cross-cultural Approaches to Adoption at the meeting of the European Association of Social Anthropologists in Krakow, Poland, in July 2000, and contributor to this volume. He was active on the international conference circuit, contributing his own research on adoption issues, and doing creative and innovative work on, among other things, topics related to adoption and gender. As the adoptive father of two Korean daughters, Kristin and Mikella, Jon and his wife Julie had first-hand experience of cross-cultural issues in adoption. He was also a long-serving probation officer, both in front-line work and in staff development and training. Of his own experience of parenthood, Jon wrote: After assuming the role of clients at the mercy of social workers and government policy (which changed us enormously, personally and professionally) we adopted our two daughters from Korea (which also changed us enormously, personally and professionally). What followed was another extraordinary journey of cross-cultural transition by immersion learning – as we made tangible our commit- ment to our increasing cognizance of our inter-country, adoptive, parental duties and responsibilities. Jon wrote about cross-cultural issues in adoption because they mattered to him, intellectually and personally, just as they touch the lives of millions of others. Our hope is that the varied perspectives and insights presented in this volume, drawing on data from many societies around the world, will also lead readers on their own cross-cultural journeys of under- standing. Contents List of illustrations xii List of contributors xiii Preface xv Glossary of anthropological terms xvi Kinship abbreviations and symbols xix INTRODUCTION 1 1 Adoption and the circulation of children: a comparative perspective 3 FIONA BOWIE 2 Adopting a native child: an anthropologist’s personal involvement in the field 21 GODULA KOSACK PART I Africa 31 3 ‘The real parents are the foster parents’: social parenthood among the Baatombu in Northern Benin 33 ERDMUTE ALBER 4 Fosterage and the politics of marriage and kinship in East Cameroon 48 CATRIEN NOTERMANS x Contents 5 Adoption practices among the pastoral Maasai of East Africa: enacting fertility 64 AUD TALLE PART II Asia and Oceania 79 6 Korean institutionalised adoption 81 INGE ROESCH-RHOMBERG 7 Transactions in rights, transactions in children: a view of adoption from Papua New Guinea 97 MELISSA DEMIAN 8 Adoption and belonging in Wogeo, Papua New Guinea 111 ASTRID ANDERSON 9 Adoptions in Micronesia: past and present 127 DIETRICH TREIDE PART III Central and South America 143 10 ‘The one who feeds has the rights’: adoption and fostering of kin, affines and enemies among the Yukpa and other Carib-speaking Indians of Lowland South America 145 ERNST HALBMAYER 11 The circulation of children in a Brazilian working-class neighborhood: a local practice in a globalized world 165 CLAUDIA FONSECA 12 Person, relation and value: the economy of circulating Ecuadorian children in international adoption 182 ESBEN LEIFSEN Contents xi 13 Choosing parents: adoption into a global network 197 HUON WARDLE PART IV Intercountry and domestic adoption in the ‘West’ 209 14 National bodies and the body of the child: ‘completing’ families through international adoption 211 BARBARA YNGVESSON 15 The backpackers that come to stay: new challenges to Norwegian transnational adoptive families 227 SIGNE HOWELL 16 Partial to completeness: gender, peril and agency in Australian adoption 242 JON TELFER 17 Adoption: a cure for (too) many ills? 257 PETER SELMAN Index 274 Illustrations Figures 6.1 Segment of Clan-X genealogy 86 8.1 A Wogeo pathway of adoption: Dab and Bajor 116 8.2 An adaptive pathway: sisters from Kinaba 117 8.3 An example of adoption and fosterage 118 8.4 Adoption from Dab to Moaroka: naming and land rights 120 8.5 Adoption from Dab to Moaroka: pathways in the landscape of matrilineal continuity 123 10.1 Cases of adoption in Yurmutu, Irapa-Yukpa 149 Tables 17.1 Children adopted in England and Wales, 1959–1984 262 17.2 Numbers and rates of intercountry adoptions, 1998 and 1989 267 17.3 Major sources of intercountry adoptions, 1998 and 1980–1989 268 17.4 Economic and demographic indicators for selected countries sending and receiving children for intercountry adoption, 1998 269 Contributors Erdmute Alber is Junior Professor of Anthropology at the University of Bayreuth, Germany. Astrid Anderson is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University Museum of Cultural Heritage, University of Oslo, Norway. Fiona Bowie is Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Bristol, UK. Melissa Demian teaches Anthropology at Rutgers and New School University in the USA. Claudia Fonseca is Professor of Anthropology at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Ernst Halbmayer is a member of the Commission for Social Anthropology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and Lecturer
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