Intercountry Adoption: a Theoretical Analysis
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INTERCOUNTRY ADOPTION: A THEORETICAL ANALYSIS by ROBIN ANNE SHURA Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation Advisor: Dale Dannefer Department of Sociology CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY January, 2010 i Copyright © 2009 by Robin A. Shura. All rights reserved. ii DEDICATION To Helen, who found herself to be a round peg in a square hole, too iii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES…………………………………………………………………….…….…vii LIST OF FIGURES…………………………………………………………………………...viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………………………………….ix ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………………..xi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………....1 I. Research Question…………………………………………………………..…………....5 II. Organization of Manuscript…………………………………………………...……….…5 CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND LITERATURE AND THEORY……………….………..…8 I. Intercountry Adoption: A Substantive Area of Scissions……………………..……….....8 II. Intercountry Adoption: Functionalist and Atheoretical Literatures……… ………...….13 A. Individual and Family-Focused Literatures……………………………… …………….13 B. Demography of Intercountry Adoption…………………………………………………..22 III. Intercountry Adoption: Conflict-Oriented and Critical Literatures………………….….35 A. Historical and Contextual Perspectives………………………………………………….36 B. Relative Poverty and Power: Perspectives of Sending Countries… …………………40 C. Dissonance between Sending and Receiving Perspectives…………………………....45 D. Race and Ethnicity……………………………………………………………………….…50 E. Gender: Women and Children Linked in Social Vulnerability……………………..…53 F. Law and Comparative Policy Perspectives……………………………………………...56 G. Structural and Regulatory Links to Corruption…………………………………………60 IV. Children, Age, and Age-related Social Vulnerability………………………………...…65 V. Sociological Theory: Two Broad Theoretical Paradigms………………………………76 A. Functionalism……………………………………………………………………………..…77 B. Conflict Theory and Critical Perspectives……………………………………………….79 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH APPROACH AND METHODOLOGY……………………….84 I. Triangulation and Crystallization……………………………………………………….85 II. Qualitative Analytic Approach: Ethnomethodlogy and Discourse Analysis…………...88 III. Qualitative Data…………………………………………………………………………92 A. Policy: Sample Selection and Justification………………………………………………92 B. Interviews: Sample Selection and Justification………………………………………....94 IV. Interview Strategy……………………………………………………………………....99 V. Interview Sample Description…………………………………………………………101 VI. Interview Analyses and Data Management……………………………………………104 iv CHAPTER 4: POLICY ANALYSIS……………………………………………………...…107 I. The Hague Convention on Inter-Country Adoption of 1993……………………….....107 II. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child of 1989………………….112 III. Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography of 2000…………………….118 CHAPTER 5: DESCRIPTIVE INTERVIEW ANALYSES: FUNCTIONALIST THEMES……………………………………….…………………..122 I. Interview Data: The Functionalist and Social Capital Model…………………………122 II. Sentimental or Ideal-based Themes…………………………………………………....123 A. Love………………………………………………………………………………………….123 B. Altruism…………….……………………………………………………………………….124 C. Familism…………………………………………………………………………………….132 i. Shortcut to Parenthood………………………………………………………..136 ii. Adoptees Do Well…………………………………………………………….140 III. Legal and Structural Themes…………………………………………………………..144 A. Strong, Stable, Legitimate Intercountry Adoption Infrastructure…………………...145 B. Strong Laws and Policy…………………………………………………………………..152 C. Increased Social Diversity……………….……………………………………………….158 CHAPTER 6: DESCRIPTIVE INTERVIEW ANALYSES: CONFLICT-ORIENTED AND CRITICAL THEMES………………………………..161 I. Interview Data: The Conflict-oriented and Critical Model……………………………161 II. Critical Accounts of Hegemonic Familism……………………………………………166 A. On Behalf of Adoptive Parents…………………………………………………………..166 B. Keeping up with the Jones’s: Intercountry Adoption as Trendy……………...……..173 C. Adoptees Pose Challenges and May Not Fare Well…………………………………..174 D. Belonging and Ownership………………………………………………………………..177 III. Structural Criticisms of Intercountry Adoption Practices……………………………..179 A. Intercountry Adoption as a Business……………………………………………………179 i. United States: Particularly Business-oriented?………………...……………..183 B. Intercountry Adoption as Business Riddled with Corruption………………………..187 C. Illicit Practices Associated with Supply of Adoptable Children…………….………196 i. Child Trafficking……………………………………………………………...196 a. “Made to Order”………………………………………………………………...203 ii. Kidnapping/Abduction………………………………………………………..207 iii. Sale of Children……………………………………………………………….210 D. Weak or Absent Infrastructure and Law………………………………………………..220 E. Exploitation of Human Resources……………………………………………………….225 v CHAPTER 7: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION………………………………………..230 I. Summary of Findings...………………………………………………………………..230 II. Theoretical Implications of Findings…………………………………………………..236 III. Discussion……………………………………………………………………………..238 IV. Key Limitations…………………………………………………………………….….248 V. Future Research Directions……………………………………………………………251 VI. Final Thoughts…………………………………………………………………………254 APPENDIX A: INFORMED CONSENT DOCUMENT…………………………………...256 APPENDIX B: QUALITATIVE INTERVIEW GUIDE…………………………………...257 REFERENCES………………………………………………………………………………..258 vi LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Receiving Countries with Highest Number of Intercountry Adoptions, 1980-1989, 1994-1999, 2001-2004 (from Kane 1993 and Selman 2000 & 2006)……...................................24 Table 2: Intercountry Adoption Ratio and Crude Adoption Rate, 1998 and 2004 (from Selman 2006)………………………………………..26 Table 3: Adoptions from Top Ten Countries of Origin Received by 20 Receiving Countries, 16 European Countries and the USA in 2003 (from Selman 2006)……………………………...27 Table 4: Intercountry Adoption Rates and Ratio for 18 Countries of Origin, 2003 (from Selman 2006)……................................................28 Table 5: Social and Demographic Characteristics of the 10 Countries Sending Most Children for Intercountry Adoption and of 4 Receiving Countries Taking Most Children for Intercountry Adoption, 2003 (from Selman 2006)……………………........................31 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Descriptive Interview Analyses: Themes……………………………….106 viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I thank immensely each person who was willing to share their time, experiences and views with me as an interviewee for this research. I sincerely thank the former, current, and past leadership of the European Network of Ombudspeople for Children (ENOC) for their incredible hospitality and support of my research. I am indebted to them for allowing me to access ENOC’s annual meetings from 2004 through 2008 as an observer. In particular, I sincerely thank the leadership of the 2007 and 2008 ENOC annual meetings for allowing me to access these meetings in order to recruit participants for this research and for their hospitality, encouragement and support during data collection. I give special thanks to Barneombudet, the office of the Norwegian Ombudsman for Children, for their support and hospitality during my data collection process, and also to Barnombudsmannen, the Swedish Ombudsman for Children and Young Persons, for their offers of additional support and hospitality during my data collection process. I thank my dissertation committee members – Professors Dale Dannefer, Brian Gran, Gunhild Hagestad, and Susan Hinze – for their consistent support, encouragement and mentorship throughout my graduate work. Each of them has been instrumental in my growth as a sociologist and in the conceptual development of this project, and I am grateful for the investments of time, opportunity and care each of my committee members has made in me. I thank Dale Dannefer, my dissertation chair, for his challenging, encouraging and collaborative presence consistently throughout my dissertation process. I thank Brian Gran for inspiring my interest in this topic and giving ix me unique opportunities to access the world of children’s rights work. I thank Brian Gran and Gunhild Hagestad, as well as colleague Lynn Gannon Falletta, for their assistance with sampling and data collection. I thank the College of Arts and Sciences at Case Western Reserve University for the generous financial support of my data collection through the Eva L. Pancoast Memorial Fellowship in both 2007 and 2008. I thank the Department of Sociology at Case Western Reserve University for their generous departmental support of my graduate work, which included fellowship support through the National Institute of Aging’s Predoctoral Traineeship. I thank additional colleagues for their encouragement, mentorship and positive influence during my graduate work: Professors Richard Settersten, Jr., Paul Stein, Michelle Smith, Bob Binstock, George Gonos, Eva Kahana, Kyle Kercher, Jennifer Fishman, Chris Phillipson and Gary Deimling. I am grateful to Michelle Rizzuto and Debra Klocker for all sorts of helpful assistance without obligation to give it. I am grateful to many peer colleagues and friends in the Sociology Department at Case, with and from whom I have learned much over the years and continue to learn. I give special thanks to my friends and colleagues Lynn Gannon Falletta, Michael Flatt and Rebecca Siders for their incredible colleagueship, support and friendship throughout and well beyond graduate work. I thank my friends and family for their love and encouragement over the years -- you have my heart, and I am incredibly fortunate for your presence and support in