Mediating Discourse in a Globalising World: Analysing the Language and Communicative Practices of Transnational Adoption

Social and political theory has taken a decidedly 'global' turn in recent years, resulting in a sustained critique of our conceptualisations of 'society' and the 'nation-state'. Social theorists ask us to refocus on, for example, transnationality, global orderings, hybrid collectives, flows, mobilities and networks. Given that (critical) applied linguistics draws upon and informs social theory in a variety of ways, we are thus compelled to ask what new possibilities there are for applied language and discourse studies as a result of contemporary social and political theorising. My contribution to this crucial debate is illustrated by considering the exemplary yet diffracted case of transnational adoption. Transnational adoption comprises a nexus of local and global practices which are mediated in, through and across talk, text and other modalities of discourse. My concern is with how the 'child-to-be-adopted' is figured as a quasi-object, a heterogeneous assemblage of biology and culture, and thus how its origin, identity and agency is performatively distributed across the social and discursive field.