Adoption Matters

Book excerpt: "As a social and legal institution of family formation, and as a personal experience of members of the adoption triad, adoption provides a fresh vantage point on an important set of philosophical and feminist issues. The family is often thought to be the basic and natural form of social life for human beings; adoption, however, highlights the powerful role that law and politics play in shaping families and our ideas about families. As a result, attention to the practices of adoption sheds light upon deeply held, but often tacit assumptions about what is natural and what is social in human life."--from the IntroductionThe institution of adoption has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years as the adoption world has undergone seismic shifts: the rise in international and transracial adoptions and the effects of global economics; adoption by gays and lesbians; increasing openness in the adoption process; and changes in domestic welfare policy on adoption. Adoption Matters adds to our understanding of reproduction, parenting, familial bonds, personal identity, self-knowledge, and contemporary social policy. The contributors to Adoption Matters explore a range of related topics, such as the manner in which interracial or international adoption affects the way we perceive the relationships among race, ethnicity, and culture and how class affects one's life prospects and choices. "In this distinctive collection of essays, the authors illuminate adoption by bringing feminist theory to bear on it, and they expand and enrich feminist theory by making it respond to their own personal experience as adoptive parents or as adoptees."--Joan Heifetz Hollinger, Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California, Berkeley, editor of Adoption Law and Practice and coeditor of Families by Law: An Adoption Reader "Adoption Matters courageously examines how adoption influences and challenges our society's understanding of the intersection of family and identity 'an intersection that is both deeply personal and highly political.'"--Abigail Garner, author of Families Like Mine: Children of Gay Parents Tell It Like It Is