Understanding practices of family separation and child removal necessitates considering the impacts of globalizing capitalism, colonialism, empire building and the establishment and normalization of systemic racism.
In Reproductive Justice, Adoption, and Foster Care, the authors situate the colonial legacies of family separation, what it means to center the right parent, and Reproductive Justice and transnational feminist frameworks in conversation with one another in order to elucidate a more nuanced and comprehensive approach to recognizing the significance of contemporary examples of family separation. In doing so, the book showcases the connections between adoption and foster care within the intellectual and activist frameworks of human rights, Critical Adoption Studies, Reproductive Justice, and transnational feminisms. Epistemologically, Reproductive Justice and transnational feminisms meet at the point where both consider and interrogate globalizing capitalism, neoliberal economic and political ideologies, and the ways that various people—mostly people of color, poor people, women, children, and Indigenous people—are considered disposable. Critical Adoption Studies also importantly highlights the ways that adoption and foster care function as forms of family formation and as mechanisms of globalizing capitalism and state formation. Thus, it is critical that any exploration of the reproductive experiences of marginalized individuals interrogate and complicate notions of “choice” to advocate for justice.
Reproductive Justice, Adoption, and Foster Care will be of interest to students of sociology, psychology, and social work, as well as scholars, activists, policymakers, and adoption and foster care practitioners.
Author Biography:
Tanya Saroj Bakhru is a professor and program coordinator of the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program at San Jose State University. She holds a PhD in Women’s Studies from University College Dublin in Ireland. Her research focuses on transnational women’s health movements and reproductive justice.
Krista L. Benson is an associate professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Studies at Grand Valley State University, teaching in LGBT Studies, Integrative Studies, and Digital Studies. They hold a PhD from The Ohio State University with an interdisciplinary specialization in Sexuality Studies. Their research focuses on how the co-constitution of sexuality, gender, race, and Indigenous sovereignty impacts marginalized people, especially children and young adults, and those involved with the criminal injustice system at all ages.
