Adoption Without Borders

Of this week's readings, I particularly enjoyed Ahmed et. al.'s introduction to Uprootings/Regroundings, and wish we had gotten to read more of the book. They brought up a number of intriguing questions about "the temporality of home," the role of cosmopolitanism in globalization, and the extent to which movement does or does not affect one's inclusion in a certain community or space. Each of these concepts are integral to the discussion of transnational adoption, and Kim acknowledges them in Adopted Territory. For the Korean adoptees, these questions are crucial: is Korea another kind of "home" for them? How do they identify as Korean from across international borders? How do globalization and technology change the relationships between people and place? One broader question I had about the issues of transnational adoption would be how the conversation changes when we try to discuss it as an oversimplified good or bad thing (on the most personal level, would we as feminists feel comfortable adopting a Korean baby after reading Kim, Mohanty, Ahmed?) as opposed to domestic adoption. Especially as Americans, this brings up issues of the significance of borders. Consider the current high profile case of the white lesbian couple that accidentally got a black sperm donor, and their resultant concerns about their child's identity and ability to effectively join their white, privileged community. While this is not an adoption case, the concerns are the same for people who adopt someone of a different race domestically. What is the difference between a white American couple adopting a Korean-American baby born here as opposed to from Korea? Mohanty's experiences that she recalls in Chapter 5, and indeed many works by non-white Americans, show that wether they are adopted or not, racial and ethnic differences matter in white America, we know this.

The difference for transnational adoption, then, brings us back to our conversations about the manipulative politics of neoliberalism from Duggan. One part about Kim's work I found most fascinating was the politics of how international adoption policies were formed, and the fluctuating desire for Korean babies abroad, and of course the jarring discussion of children as a case of supply and demand like any other product. For example, Kim shows how Korean policies "reinforce the conservative family values that disparage motherhood outside of marriage," by not assisting unmarried pregnant mothers which "reinforces the censure of extramarital sex and motherhood by creating a hierarchy of singles," (37). It is of course impossible to decide wether adopting children from other countries is inherently "good or bad," but in considering it one should certainly look at who these programs are constructed to help. Ahmed et. al. write that one of the main challenges to transnational feminism is that is "has an affirmative dimension in the desire to create ethical forms of solidarity with others. Such solidarities must involve respect for differences that cannot be translated, and for situated attachments to land and place," (6). Transnational adoption itself is not necessarily opposed to this goal, and can potentially aid in addressing it. While Kim's study of the adoptee's experience is valuable, I would have enjoyed further investigation into the creation of adoption programs as neoliberal projects as in the intro and first chapter.