>> Support material: Chapter 10


Chapter 10: Hybrid Identityird

 

Case studies Video clips Weblinks Further reading Podcasts
Case studies Video clips Weblinks Further reading Podcasts

 

Case study

Intercountry adoption: The cultural divide

In October 2006, superstar Madonna and her film director husband adopted a 13-month-old boy, David Banda, from an orphanage in Malawi, Africa. David’s mother died giving birth to him, and as his father could not cope with the baby, he gave him up to an orphanage. The adoption of David raises the issue of what happens to orphaned or abandoned children in some poorer societies.

The details in the media about Madonna’s adoption of David reflect other news stories dedicated to saving the ‘global orphan’, that is, a child from a poor country for whom the State cannot provide adequate care and protection. Transnational or intercountry adoptions have become increasingly common since the 1990s and involve thousands of children, generally from poorer, less-developed parts of the world, who are adopted by families in Western countries.

The social construction of identity has become a central issue in sociology. By the late twentieth century, issues of identity came to dominate the literature in sociology, particularly in ethnic and cultural studies. Although we all have multiple identities, a major theme in adoption is what some writers term ‘identity hunger’. The discourse on adoption has moved to questions such as adopted children searching for someone who ‘looks like me’ and what some term their ‘genealogical bewilderment’.

In Australia in 2003–05, the highest proportion of adopted children came from China, followed by South Korea, Ethiopia, Thailand, the Philippines, India, and Sri Lanka (Parliament of Australia, House of Representatives 2005). The questions of belonging and difference have become major themes in intercountry adoptions, and the cultural divide felt by adopted children often begins when they realise that they do not look like everyone else in the family. As well as the matter of appearance, many adoptees grapple with questions such as ‘Who am I?’ and suffer from a sense of grief and abandonment over not knowing their birth parents or cultural backgrounds.

In the past, adopted children were expected to fit in with their new families. Today, the emphasis is on the child’s cultural background, and adoptive parents are expected to undertake education and training sessions on how intercountry adoptions impact on a child’s identity. Today, particularly in the United States, there are many websites devoted to adopted children seeking information on their ‘roots’ and ‘birth cultures’.

References and further reading

Parliament of Australia, House of Representatives, May 2005, ‘The Adoption Maze’, House News, Iss. 23, http://www.aph.gov.au/house/house_news/magazine/23/ath23_adoption.pdf (accessed October 2006).

Tyler, A. 2006, Digging to America, Chatto & Windus, London.
This is a novel about two families’ experiences of intercountry adoption in America. The novel explores the themes of belonging and otherness.

Volkman, T. A. (ed.) 2005, Cultures of Transnational Adoption, Duke University Press, Durham N.C.

Discussion questions

  1. Do we need to know who our biological parents are?
  2. Identify other groups of people who have been separated from their families. What are some of the problems they have experienced?
  3. Explore some of the websites for children of intercountry adoptions. What are the main issues they raise?
  4. Even if children come from very poor backgrounds where their very survival is at stake, do you think they should be adopted by affluent Western families? What do you think the issues are?