Unequal Motherhoods and the Adoption of Asian Children

Birth, Foster, and Adoptive Mothers

Jungyun Gill

This book explores a deeply personal aspect of globalization: the adoption of Asian children by white Americans. It is based on dozens of interviews with adoptive mothers and adoption social workers, nearly two hundred letters and essays written by Korean birth mothers who put their children up for adoption, and field work at an adoption agency in South Korea. It also includes analyses and explanations of U.S. and South Korean governments’ social characteristics and policies regarding adoptions and how relations between nations have affected international adoption. The book focuses on whether the commonly held notion that adoptions are to serve children’s welfare and their best interests has tended to render gendered aspects of international adoptions invisible. Factors such as gender inequality, social control of women’s reproductive power, patriarchic family structure, and social beliefs concerning womanhood and motherhood that affect international adoptions are revealed in this book. The multiple ways in which adoptive, birth, and foster mothers experience gender oppression from their different social positions of class, race, and nationality are explored and the interdependencies and inequalities of the motherhoods of these three groups of women are brought to light.

Lexington Books

Pages: 170 • Trim: 6¼ x 9½

978-1-4985-0962-6 • Hardback • December 2016 • $117.00 • (£90.00)

978-1-4985-0964-0 • Paperback • November 2018 • $46.99 • (£36.00)

978-1-4985-0963-3 • eBook • December 2016 • $44.50 • (£35.00)

Subjects: Social Science / Sociology / Marriage & Family, Social Science / Gender Studies, Social Science / Discrimination & Race Relations, Social Science / Women's Studies, Social Science / World / Asia

Unequal Motherhoods and the Adoption of Asian Children

Birth, Foster, and Adoptive Mothers

Hardback

Paperback

eBook

Summary

This book explores a deeply personal aspect of globalization: the adoption of Asian children by white Americans. It is based on dozens of interviews with adoptive mothers and adoption social workers, nearly two hundred letters and essays written by Korean birth mothers who put their children up for adoption, and field work at an adoption agency in South Korea. It also includes analyses and explanations of U.S. and South Korean governments’ social characteristics and policies regarding adoptions and how relations between nations have affected international adoption. The book focuses on whether the commonly held notion that adoptions are to serve children’s welfare and their best interests has tended to render gendered aspects of international adoptions invisible. Factors such as gender inequality, social control of women’s reproductive power, patriarchic family structure, and social beliefs concerning womanhood and motherhood that affect international adoptions are revealed in this book. The multiple ways in which adoptive, birth, and foster mothers experience gender oppression from their different social positions of class, race, and nationality are explored and the interdependencies and inequalities of the motherhoods of these three groups of women are brought to light.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 170 • Trim: 6¼ x 9½

978-1-4985-0962-6 • Hardback • December 2016 • $117.00 • (£90.00)

978-1-4985-0964-0 • Paperback • November 2018 • $46.99 • (£36.00)

978-1-4985-0963-3 • eBook • December 2016 • $44.50 • (£35.00)

Subjects: Social Science / Sociology / Marriage & Family, Social Science / Gender Studies, Social Science / Discrimination & Race Relations, Social Science / Women's Studies, Social Science / World / Asia

Author

Jungyun Gill is assistant professor of sociology at Stonehill College.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Mothers and Motherhoods in International Adoptions
1. Historical and Social Contexts of the Institutionalization of Korea-to-US Adoption: A Global Feminist Sociological Imagination Approach
2. Birth Mothers in Korea
3. Foster Mothers in Korea
4. Adoptive Mothers in the United States5. Adoptive and Birth Mothers’ Adoption Storytelling
Conclusion: Unequal Motherhoods in International Adoptions

Reviews

An interesting look at transnational, transracial adoption in Korea, the Motherland, the place it all began.
— Barbara Katz Rothman, City University of New York, author of "Weaving a Family: Untangling Race and Adoption"