Since the late nineteen sixties, transnational adoption has emerged as a global phenomenon. Due to a sharp decline in infants being made available for adoption locally, involuntarily childless couples in Western Europe and North America who wish to create a family, have to look to look to countries in the poor South and Eastern Europe. The purpose of this book is to locate transnational adoption within a broad context of contemporary Western life, especially values concerning family, children and meaningful relatedness, and to explore the many ambiguities and paradoxes that the practice entails. Based on empirical research from Norway, the author identifies three main themes for analysis: Firstly, by focusing on the perceived relationship between biology and sociality, she examines how notions of child, childhood and significant relatedness vary across time and space. She argues that through a process of kinning, persons are made into kin. In the case of adoption, kinning overcomes a dominant cultural emphasis placed upon biological connectedness. Secondly, it is a study of the rise of expert knowledge in the understanding of ''the best interest of the child'', and how the part played by the ''psycho.technocrats'' effects national and international policy and practice of transnational adoption. Thirdly, it shows how transnational adoption both depends upon and helps to foster the globalisation of Western rationality and morality. The book is an original contribution to the anthropological study of kinship and globalisation.

Since the late nineteen sixties, transnational adoption has emerged as a global phenomenon. Due to a sharp decline in infants being made available for adoption locally, involuntarily childless couples in Western Europe and North America who wish to create a family, have to look to look to countries in the poor South and Eastern Europe. The purpose of this book is to locate transnational adoption within a broad context of contemporary Western life, especially values concerning family, children and meaningful relatedness, and to explore the many ambiguities and paradoxes that the practice entails. Based on empirical research from Norway, the author identifies three main themes for analysis: Firstly, by focusing on the perceived relationship between biology and sociality, she examines how notions of child, childhood and significant relatedness vary across time and space. She argues that through a process of kinning, persons are made into kin. In the case of adoption, kinning overcomes a dominant cultural emphasis placed upon biological connectedness. Secondly, it is a study of the rise of expert knowledge in the understanding of ‘the best interest of the child’, and how the part played by the ‘psycho.technocrats’ effects national and international policy and practice of transnational adoption. Thirdly, it shows how transnational adoption both depends upon and helps to foster the globalisation of Western rationality and morality. The book is an original contribution to the anthropological study of kinship and globalisation.

List of Figures
List of Tables
Preface
Acknowledgements

PART I: ADOPTION - BIOLOGY OR SOCIALITY?

Chapter 1. Desire and Rights: Transnational Movement of Substances and Concepts
Chapter 2. A Changing World of Families: An Overview
Chapter 3. Kinship with Strangers: Values and Practices of Adoption
Chapter 4. Kinning and Transubstantiation: Norwegianisation of Adoptees
Chapter 5. Expert Knowledge: The Role of Psychology in Adoption Discourses
Chapter 6. Who Am I, Then? Adoptees’ Perspectives on Identity and Ethnicity

PART II: GOVERNMENTALITY AND THE ROLE OF PSYCHO-TECHNOCRATS

Chapter 7. Benevolent Control: Adoption Legislation in the USA and Norway
Chapter 8. Benevolent Control: International Treaties on Adoption
Chapter 9. Expert Knowledge: Global and Local Adoption Discourses in India, Ethiopia, China and Romania
Chapter 10. In Conclusion: To Kin a Foreign Child

Postscript: A Note on Methods

Bibliography
Index