Geographies of transnational adoption: demographics, regulation, economics and representation..
Abstract
This PhD project addresses the political, economic and cultural geographies of
transnational child adoption. The research conducts a detailed exploration of two key
elements with this complex and rapidly evolving practice of family development. First,
it examines the legal and fiscal transactions that are required for transnational child
adoption (TNA) within key receiving countries. Focusing on TNA practice trends
within the US and UK, it explores the regulations and economies of this unique family
building process on local, national and global scales. The aim of the research is to
accurately describe the political economies and geographies of TNA receiving families
residing in the UK and the US. Secondly, this project explores key debates within public
discourse around reproductive options that inform the rhetoric around receiving
families as distinctly ‘modern’ family formations. It addresses the ways the new
practice is differentiated, normalised or negotiated in relation to both understandings of
the family and relatedness as well as wider issues of multiculturalism, transnationalism,
social capital production and the technical intensity of modern reproductive practices.
In particular, this work considers the extended geographies of receiving families that are
conventionally represented in relation to notions of relatedness and family through
ideas of intimacy, closeness and proximity.
This thesis responds to an urgent need for more updated and comprehensive
quantitative, qualitative and legal research on the recent escalation of TNA in
comparison with other globalized family building alternatives that have similarly
broadened in parental accessibility over the same period. Based on a critical review of
current TNA practice, this research explores how and why TNA has become a contested
topic of public discourse and increased in cultural visibility in excess of its numerical
significance relative to other forms of family formation.
Authors
Grant, Shelley K.Collections
- Theses [4099]