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. These articles look at adoption practices from Africa, Oceania, Asia 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 'adoption', 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.
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This edited collection looks at diverse examples of child-rearing and adoption practices from across the globe, revealing some of the assumptions that lie beneath western childcare policy.
Dedication Preface List of Contributors Glossary of Anthropological Terms Introduction 1. Adoption and the Circulation of Children: A Comparative Perspective2. Adopting a Native Child: An Anthropologist's Personal Involvement in the Field Part 1: Africa 3. 'The Real Parents are the Foster Parents': Social Parenthood among the Baatombu in Northern Benin4. Fosterage and the Politics of Marriage and Kinship in East Cameroon5. Adoption Practices among the Pastoral Maasai of East Africa: Enacting FertilityPart 2: Asia and Oceania 6. Korean Institutionalised Adoption 7. Transactions in Rights, Transactions in Children: A view of Adoption from Papua New Guinea8. Adoption and Belonging in Wogeo, Papua New Guinea9. Adoptions in Micronesia - Past and PresentPart 3: Central and South America 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 America11. The Circulation of Children in a Brazilian Working-Class Neighbourhood: A Local Practice in a Globalized World12. Person, Relation and Value: The Economy of Circulating Ecuadorian Children in International Adoptions13. Choosing Parents: Adoption into a Global NetworkPart 4: Intercountry and Domestic Adoptions in 'the West' 14. National Bodies and the Body of the Child: 'Completing' Families through International Adoption15. The Backpackers that Come to Stay: New Challenges to Norwegian Transnational Adoptive Families16. Partial to Completeness: Gender, Peril and Agency in Australian Adoption17. Adoption: A Cure for (too) Many Ills
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Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9780415303507
Publisert
2004-09-30
Utgiver
Vendor
Routledge
Vekt
720 gr
Høyde
216 mm
Bredde
138 mm
Aldersnivå
G, U, 01, 05
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet
Antall sider
304

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Biographical note

Fiona Bowie is Senior Lecturer and Head of Anthropology at the University of Bristol, where she specialises in anthropology of religion, kinship and African society.