Journalism/Research Archives

The Politics of Reproduction: Adoption, Abortion, and Surrogacy in the Age of Neoliberalism Edited by Modhumita Roy and Mary Thompson

Forthcoming October 2019. Available for preorder. The Politics of Reproduction: Adoption, Abortion and Surrogacy in the Age of Neoliberalism uniquely brings together three sites of reproduction and reproductive politics to demonstrate their entanglement in creating or restricting options for family-making. The original essays in this collection—which draw from a wide range of disciplinaryRead More →

Korean Adoptees and Transnational Adoption: Embodiment and Emotion by Jessica Walton

This book investigates the experiences of South Koreans adopted into Western families and the complexity of what it means to ‘feel identity’ beyond what is written in official adoption files. Korean Adoptees and Transnational Adoption is based on ethnographic fieldwork in South Korea and interviews with adult Korean adoptees fromRead More →

Disrupting Kinship: Transnational Politics of Korean Adoption in the United States by Kimberly D. McKee

Since the Korean War began, Western families have adopted more than 200,000 Korean children. Two thirds of these adoptees found homes in the United States. The majority joined white families and in the process forged a new kind of transnational and transracial kinship. Kimberly D. McKee examines the growth ofRead More →

Origin Narratives: The Stories We Tell Children About Immigration and International Adoption by Macarena García-González

The first of its kind, this volume unpacks the cultural construction of transnational adoption and migration by examining a sample of recent children’s books that address the subject. Of all European countries, Spain is the nation where immigration and transnational adoption have increased most steeply from the early 1990s onward. OriginRead More →

Adoption, Identity, and Kinship: The Debate over Sealed Birth Records by Katarina Wegar

In this thoughtful book, sociologist Katarina Wegar offers a new perspective on adoption and the search debate, placing them within a social context. She argues that Americans who are embroiled in adoption controversies have failed to understand how much the debate, adoption research, and the experience of adoption itself areRead More →

The Best Possible Immigrants: International Adoption and the American Family by Rachel Rains Winslow

Prior to World War II, international adoption was virtually unknown, but in the twenty-first century, it has become a common practice, touching almost every American. How did the adoption of foreign children by U.S. families become an essential part of American culture in such a short period of time? RachelRead More →

The Colour of Time: A Longitudinal Exploration of the Impact of Intercountry Adoption in Australia Compiled by Lynelle Long for International Social Service (ISS) Australia

This sequel to The Colour of Difference examines the path of identity formation, openness within the adoptive family, and the long-term impact on intercountry adoptees. It highlights how open discussion and dialogue within an adoptive family — along with strong encouragement and facilitation to connect with culture — may assist an adoptee toRead More →

Life Lines: Writing Transcultural Adoption by John McLeod

Adoptions that cross the lines of culture, race, and nation are a major consequence of conflicts around the globe, yet their histories and representations have rarely been considered. Life Lines: Writing Transcultural Adoption is the first critical study to explore narratives of transcultural adoption from contemporary Britain, Ireland, and America: fictions, films,Read More →

The Adoption Machine: The Dark History of Ireland’s Mother & Baby Homes and the Inside Story of How “Tuam 800” Became a Global Scandal by Paul Jude Redmond

MAY 2014. The Irish public woke to the horrific discovery of a mass grave containing the remains of almost 800 babies in the “Angels’ Plot’ of Tuam’s Mother and Baby Home. What followed would rock the last vestiges of Catholic Ireland, enrage an increasingly secularised nation, and lead to aRead More →

Spare the Kids: Why Whupping Children Won’t Save Black America by Stacey Patton

Why do so many African Americans have such a special attachment to whupping children? Studies show that nearly 80 percent of black parents see spanking, popping, pinching, and beating as reasonable, effective ways to teach respect and to protect black children from the streets, incarceration, encounters with racism, or worse.Read More →

The Baby Scoop Era: Unwed Mothers, Infant Adoption and Forced Surrender by Karen Wilson-Buterbaugh

An expose of unethical and coercive adoption industry practices during a short period in American history known as the Baby Scoop Era (Post WWII – 1972). By sharing the actual printed words of social caseworkers, maternity home personnel, lawyers, judges, medical and mental health practitioners, the methods used to ensureRead More →

Finding Our Place: 100 Memorable Adoptees, Fostered Persons, and Orphanage Alumni by Nikki McCaslin with Richard Uhrlaub and Marilyn Grotsky

This unique one-volume reference guide provides positive and empowering biographical sketches of 100 famous and well-known adoptees throughout time, serving to counter the many negative stereotypes that exist that exist about people who were adopted, fostered, or lived in orphanages. This work looks at the lives of people who, despiteRead More →

The Baby Thief: The Untold Story of Georgia Tann, the Baby Seller Who Corrupted Adoption by Barbara Bisantz Raymond

The story, first told by Barbara Raymond in a magazine article that inspired a 60 Minutes feature, was shocking. Georgia Tann, nationally lauded for arranging adoptions out of her children’s home in Memphis, Tennessee, was actually a baby seller who terrorized poor, often unwed mothers by stealing their children andRead More →

Adoption Deception: A Personal and Professional Journey by Penny Mackieson

Have you ever wondered how it might feel to have been adopted in Australia during the pre-1980s era in which vulnerable young mothers were coerced into relinquishing their babies? How it might feel to have grown up, become a social worker and worked with vulnerable children and families? This bookRead More →

Invisible Asians: Korean American Adoptees, Asian American Experiences, and Racial Exceptionalism by Kim Park Nelson

The first Korean adoptees were powerful symbols of American superiority in the Cold War; as Korean adoption continued, adoptees’ visibility as Asians faded as they became a geopolitical success story—all-American children in loving white families. In Invisible Asians, Kim Park Nelson analyzes the processes by which Korean American adoptees’ haveRead More →

Family Matters: Secrecy and Disclosure in the History of Adoption by E. Wayne Carp

Adoption is a hot topic–played out in the news and on TV talk shows, in advice columns and tell-all tales–but for the 25 million Americans who are members of the adoption triad of adoptees, adoptive parents, and birth parents, the true story of adoption has not been told until now.Read More →

Global Families: A History of Asian International Adoption in America by Catherine Ceniza Choy

In the last fifty years, transnational adoption—specifically, the adoption of Asian children—has exploded in popularity as an alternative path to family making. Despite the cultural acceptance of this practice, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the factors that allowed Asian international adoption to flourish. In Global Families, Catherine CenizaRead More →

Strangers and Kin: The American Way of Adoption by Barbara Melosh

Strangers and Kin is the history of adoption, a quintessentially American institution in its buoyant optimism, generous spirit, and confidence in social engineering. An adoptive mother herself, Barbara Melosh tells the story of how married couples without children sought to care for and nurture other people’s children as their own.Read More →

In Their Voices: Black Americans on Transracial Adoption by Rhonda M. Roorda

While many proponents of transracial adoption claim that American society is increasingly becoming “color-blind,” a growing body of research reveals that for transracial adoptees of all backgrounds, racial identity does matter. Rhonda M. Roorda elaborates significantly on that finding, specifically studying the effects of the adoption of black and biracialRead More →

Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother: Stories of Loss and Love by Xinran (translated from Chinese by Nicky Harman)

Following her internationally bestselling book The Good Women of China, Xinran has written one of the most powerful accounts of the lives of Chinese women. She has gained entrance to the most pained, secret chambers in the hearts of Chinese mothers—students, successful businesswomen, midwives, peasants—who, whether as a consequence ofRead More →