Exclusivity and Inclusivity in Transnational Adoption

Abstract

There has been an unprecedented rise in the popularity of transnational adoption in Western countries in the twenty-first century. Although on the global level annual numbers of intercountry adoptions have recently decreased from around 45,000 to fewer than 38,000 (Selman, 2009: 580), demand in the West continues to rise. As adoption involves biogenetic as well as ethnic and national dislocation, it also provides a lens through which to examine who is included in and who is excluded from the family. The family here refers to both the adoptive family that is assembled and the birth family that is disassembled within the process.