This article touched on a couple forms of migration that are usually not integrated within migration studies since they are either not included as migration (adoption) or are seen mostly through a security lens (getting papers for others through a work ‘contract’) and talked about from that perspective.
I found it interesting how adoption, at least legally is not viewed as a form of migration. On one hand, I can see the argument for not placing it under that rubric, since the idea, at least legally is that of a child becomes part of a different nation. On the other hand, the exclusion of child having the ability to have access to two or more cultural, social, and political histories is difficult to comprehend. This however, is not outside the norm since we are all taught from an early age a sanitized ‘national’ of heroes and villains.
It is also interesting how legality also follows social and cultural norms. In this case, the social and cultural norm of the ‘nuclear’ family is where the law rests upon, which makes the case perhaps for those that fight against universal rights since the nuclear family is not the only way to look at family. This difference makes people break or go-around the law when one decides to help another person to migrate. The work ‘contracts’ in this article present a case in point, where people that do not fit within the definition of ‘family’ are helped to migrate to Spain by people that see circumventing the law as necessary in order to help those they see as family.
As we continue, we often see that the line between legal/illegal depends on the prism. Although unlawful to bring people not directly related to a person, many times, a split takes place between what is legal and what is considered to be ‘right’ regardless of what others may think.
I also found the idea of return interesting. I wondered what does a person return to? One does try to find where they were adopted, but what happens after. The case of the girl that began an NGO is an anomaly. How does a person return to place they have no memory of?
The article could have gone deeper into the analysis of the people interviewed. It did not go deep enough either into how this form of migration is transnational, nor did it go far enough at the individual level as to see how it is that people that are adopted, or migrate through false work contracts are interrelated. From what I read, the links were tenuous at best.
What do you think?
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Am 12. January 2017 um 14:26 Uhr
I have to admit that I’ve never considered adoption as a form of migration. I was completely influenced by the fact that “adoption is juridically equivalent to birth for the purposes of citizenship” (p.383). It is interesting to think that the adopted child officially entered as a foreigner to then administratively become a citizen and that this transition completely change his/her conception of what is “home”. My adopted cousin once confessed me that before going back to the country where he was born and meeting the people that cared him at the orphanage at a very early age he never actually realized that he passed the beginning of his life there. Until this time he was thinking that his life begun the day he moved to France.
Adoption is a form of migration thus adoptees are not scrutinized such as migrants because one’s assume that an adopted child received his/her receiving country’s education thanks to his/her adoptive family. I think this article could have been completed by a parallel between adoptees and children from the 2nd generation of migrants : they both received the receiving’s country education thanks to school, they speak the langage and are considered as citizens : do society actually consider them as equals ?
Am 13. January 2017 um 18:12 Uhr
As Margot mentioned it was also new to me to so adoption as a form of migration. I think this thinking is because the adopted children do not decide to migrate – and where to go – or even notice it because they are mostly too young. It is more the adopting parents who decide for the child to leave the country/home. Whereas the migrants can decide themselves if, when and where they go. Anyway it was a interesting insight in this study area and about nation, origin and belonging of these to components in the transnational studies.
I also agree with Felipe that the article could have done deeper in the analysis of the people interviewed. I have never been in contact with adoption or adoptees, so to understand the fact of returning to the home-countries and especially what kind of feelings or expectations they have doing it, would be interesting. I cannot imagine what they expect when left the country as a Baby. The example the article gives, about the Peruvian adoptee from Holland was impressive but as the author mentioned it is unnormal, I would have liked to read about a more common example.
Am 15. January 2017 um 17:53 Uhr
Like my colleagues already mentioned I also never considered adoption as a form of migration. Just like Lea observed the child does not decide on his own to leave the country, the adoptive parents do it. That’s definitely one point why we are not considering adoption as a classical migration type.
Actually, I didn’t like the article so much. The idea to put international migration and international adoption into the same analytic framework is interesting but I didn’t really get the connections between them.
But one interesting part of the article was the part of the return. The author mentioned the voluntary return which “encompasses the idea of contribution to the home country’s development.” (p.388) I think this point could have been more focused. She made to examples where this contribution is given. Especially the case of Alanya, the Peruvian girl adopted by parents in Holland, who build up an NGO in Peru is exciting.
Am 17. January 2017 um 15:00 Uhr
Just as the others I had never thought about adoption from abroad being some kind of migration. Thinking about it now, however, I guess there are parallels worth being considered. Lea’s comment on adoption not being considered migration because someone else decides for the children made me wonder about children migrants in general. In my opinion, adoption isn’t the only case in which (adoptive) parents make the decision for their children to migrate. What about not adopted children’s migration? Do they even form part of research on migration? And going further, how do you know or where is the dividing line between the group of children not deciding for themselves and those who do? Actually, I find that a pretty complicated issue.
Something I found very interesting and kind of grave, is the focus on economic security in adoption regulations. While I do understand that it is important to have such regulations, I do not consider financial security and owning or renting a house a valid indicator for being good parents. However, I guess it is a lot easier to identify than psychological preconditions. Pointing out these regulations on economic security, the author draws a clear parallel between adoption and ‘reagrupación’.
Also, she brings up several interesting questions, for example about the concept of family and how it may be very different in different cultures. I would even say that who one considers family may not only be different according to origins from different countries but is really a very individual question.
Of course, the article could and maybe should go deeper into the perspective of returning adoptees, however, the author does mention some questions I imagine common among adoptees from abroad, like the difference in looks or why the biological parents gave you up. Nevertheless, I think to fully understand the motives for adoptees to return to their country of origin and maybe even to feel the need to contribute there it would be necessary to make a detour into psychology or even psychoanalysis.
I do see why the author wanted to bring adoption and migration together, however, in my opinion it would make more sense to compare cases of adoption from abroad and children whose parents decided for them to migrate. Clearly, there are a lot of differences too, but I feel that the point that someone else decides for you to go to another country and what that does to you very interesting.
Am 18. January 2017 um 18:07 Uhr
In her article, Jessaca B. Leinaweaver proposes an interesting comparison between the dissimilar legal statuses of labor migrants and adopted children, and the manner in which those normative conditions affect the lives of the subjects covered by them, as well as the way in which both groups of people (migrants and adoptees) circumvent the dispositions contained in the codes.
I personally found this paper quite interesting, especially in regard to the approach to the notion of ‘kinship’. It is clear how migration laws are conditioned by cultural conception of what a nuclear family is supposed to be, which in turn determines the status of an adoptee -who loses all relationship to his/her biological household once he/she is accepted in a foreign family- and the labor immigrant -who is restricted when attempting to help members of his/her family other than couples and children. It’s important to highlight the fact that the notions of family and kinship contained in the host country’s codes might not correlate to similar notions hold within the cultural setting from which migrants come from, a factor that needs to be analyzed in greater depth.
Am 22. January 2017 um 15:26 Uhr
Just as my fellow students, I never thought of adoption as a form of migration. However, I think that the author makes an interesting comparison. I would have loved to read more on the topic, but here I agree with Felipe: the author has not gone deep enough.
I think Margot made an interesting point: a parallel between adoptees and migrants’ children would have been interesting. I don’t think that society considers them as equals, but then again, adopted children may not always be perceived as part of their adoptive parents’ country if they have darker skin or, more generally, if their physiognomy is different.
I also found the idea of return interesting. It actually sounds paradoxical to return to a place you cannot remember. Here I think that a person’s wish to know his or her “roots”, to know where they come from, plays an important role. It may be a sort of an “emotional” bond to their country of origin. Maybe an adoptee who experienced discrimination in the country of his adopted parents feels the urge to trace back his roots, to be more accepted in society?
All in all, I liked the text, but, as I mentioned before, I would have liked the author’s reasoning to be more thorough.
Am 9. February 2017 um 06:31 Uhr
I agree with Jesus that the kinship aspect of the paper is of particular interest. Though it is most pertinent to consider which are the differences in kinship relations in the ‘host’ country and the country of origin, it is worth noting that in neither context are these necessarily homogeneous. In other words, there are many who canvas for changes (juridical or otherwise) in hegemonic suppositions of what can be considered valid kinship relations, both in Latin America and in Europe.
I found this paper to be one of the most interesting we’ve read thus far as a lot presumptions inherent in discourses on development, kinship and nation are brought to light. Both the information available on Spain’s Ministry for Work and Immigration website as well as the opinion of Flora (whose name is not mentioned earlier) attest to a presumption about the unidirectional enrichment of Peru through an individual’s learning in Spain.
What I find interesting is that the paper touches on a notion of debt. Particularly at the bottom of page 392. In mentioning the U.S mother of two Peruvian children “She hoped that the daughters would one day appreciate everything their parents had done for them, and would treat their parents as well as they deserve.” Further, on the next page “the assumption that adopted children should feel grateful is set primarily within a political-economic context in which nations and the associated opportunities are ranked hierarchically.” Individuals are thus presumed to owe something to their (biological/adoptive) parents and/or to the nation-state which receives them. Is this justified? They no less chose this than they did to migrate.
One final interesting point is that made by an adoptive mother in the US, which Leinaweaver clarifies as follows “as parents of racially different children, she meant, adoptive parents must commit to antiracism and must actively respond when their child or others are harassed on the basis of racial difference.”
As parents who have adopted, and perhaps to some extent contributed to a degree of racial diversity, is their responsibility really greater than that of other parents with regards to racial tolerance? Are they responsible, as a result of adopting, for disrupting racial homogeneity and therefore causing friction?
Am 16. February 2017 um 12:40 Uhr
I found the text all in one really interesting and I agree with the fact that the article could have done deeper in the analysis of the people interviewed.
I was never considered adoption as a part of migration process and after reading the text it seemed so clear to me that actually also a person who has been adopted had to face a lot of problems that also a migrant had to, especially the psychological part. But maybe also another difference between the two is that whereas an adopted person leave the country for a 100% assured better life, a migrant doesn’t really know what he has to face in the next country. So maybe we could consider an adopted person as a “privileged migrant” or something like this?
Am 20. December 2023 um 10:36 Uhr
The article notes that the analysis could have gone further at the individual level to understand the interrelated experiences of adopted individuals and those migrating through false work contracts. In your opinion, how might a more in-depth exploration of these individual experiences contribute to our understanding of unconventional migration? check our Telkom University