Becoming an Adoptive Parent: A Qualitative Analysis of the Experience of Prospective Intercountry Adopters

Our research approaches transnational adoption as a nexus of local and global practices which are mediated in talk, text and other modalities of discourse. We use mediated discourse analysis combined with virtual ethnography to understand the cross-cultural similarities and differences in transnational adoption practice and representation. We present the results of our analysis of how the experiences of adoptive parents are (re)mediated in a Danish television documentary series following five prospective adoptive couples, not all of whom succeed in their 'quest' to adopt from abroad. Furthermore, we trace how adopters publicly narrate their own experiences and problems with fertility and with adoption, as well as how they construct their personal websites, network with others locally and internationally, orient to other ‘sites’ or sources of information, share advice and create 'public goods'. We compare the websites of Danish adopters with those of adopters in Finland and the USA. Our aim is to better understand how discourses and contingent practices of care and 'kinning' are assembled in order to 'translate' a child from one familial 'place' or nexus of practice in the world to another, while crossing linguistic, sociocultural, kinship, racial, class and national boundaries in the process. By combining this qualitative approach with studies of governmentality we map out a set of analytical tools to examine the practices and micropolitics of adoptive parents and families, especially those practices which may precipitate a 'call for help' to distant actors, such as social welfare provision or counselling services.