Reframing Transracial Adoption
Adopted Koreans, White Parents, and the Politics of Kinship

Kristi Brian (Author)

9781439901847

Paperback / softback, published 11 May 2012

230 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2 cm, 0.666 kg

"(C)ompelling.... Brian effectively analyzes the inherently political act of family building.... Brian’s critical race feminist methodology, and her explanation of the matters of adoption and the ways in which adoption matters are useful and often insightful.... There is much to be applauded in a political analysis of a phenomenon such as Korean-American adoption and Kristi Brian’s Reframing Transracial Adoption succeeds admirably in this regard." —Anthropological Quarterly

"This book is thoroughly researched and brave in asserting specific positions with regard to adoption reform.... Overall, there is much to be learned from Brian's account, and she provides important challenges to current thinking as it is embodied by adoptive parents, adoption facilitators and agencies, and adoption policy discourse." —American Ethnologist

"Brian demonstrates an exceptional understanding of the problems affecting Korean adoption...her work is noteworthy for its effort to document racism within adoptive families.... Reframing Transracial Adoption is at once a scholarly study and a work of adoption reform activism. Brian highlights structural problems in the transnational adoption industry and shows how adult Korean adoptees are working to change it. In addition, she makes a strong argument against the commonly held idea that transracial adoption is a cure for racism because it creates multiracial families. She instead shows how the adoption industry depends on white privilege and the geopolitical dominance of the United States." — Signs: Journal of Women and Culture in Society

"Brian exhibits a strong conversant history and literature on race and adoption.... She is particularly good at critiquing transracial adoption by celebrity... she raises the intriguing issue of how adoptees themselves are now changing the processes of adoption.... Brian's book provides an excellent critique of the hidden racism in American adoptions." — Contemporary Sociology

Reframing Transracial Adoption Korean Adoptees, White Parents, and the Politics of Kinship Kristi Brian A provocative critique of transnational, transracial adoption from a critical race and feminist perspective and a vision for reform Until the late twentieth century, the majority of foreign-born children adopted in the United States came from Korea. In the absorbing book Reframing Transracial Adoption, Kristi Brian investigates the power dynamics at work between the white families, the Korean adoptees, and the unknown birth mothers. Brian conducts interviews with adult adopted Koreans, adoptive parents, and adoption agency facilitators in the United States to explore the conflicting interpretations of race, culture, multiculturalism, and family. Brian argues for broad changes as she critiques the so-called "colorblind" adoption policy in the United States. Analyzing the process of kinship formation, the racial aspects of these adoptions, and the experience of adoptees, she reveals the stifling impact of dominant nuclear-family ideologies and the crowded intersections of competing racial discourses. Brian finds a resolution in the efforts of adult adoptees to form coherent identities and launch powerful adoption reform movements.