Adopter quand on a une descendance biologique

Abstract

Why adopt when you have biological descendants, and why adopt ostensibly by choosing a child from a black African country? This is the question we address in this article from a doctoral thesis in psychology supported in 2017 at the University of Lorraine. Although adoption has been the subject of much research, the scientific literature on “international adoption”, which will occupy us here, and which, at least in France, has tended to dry up in recent years, is very little provided. That is why, in order to open up avenues of research, we wanted to engage in an exploratory study of the appropriation that couples give in the after-the-fact to this adventure in which they engaged. Five couples were therefore interviewed in non-directive research interviews (Blanchet, 2003) conducted by the clinical psychologist involved in this thesis. This style of adoption is basically a “couple affair”, each couple being heard in three separate meetings in about a week. The first interview took place with the couple, the next two involving just the wife and then the husband. The interviews were recorded, then transcribed verbatim, finally analyzed thematically, through a relatively informal content analysis, and then pragmatically, using tools for analysis of the dialogue relating to enunciation (for example on people's deixis [Benveniste, 1966]) and dialogue management (e.g. the management of alternation and dialogical sequences (Trognon and Brassac, 1993; Trognon and Coulon, 2001; Trognon and Batt, 2010). This approach has identified many traits specific to those involved in the adventure of “international adoption”. Related, for example, to the individual and interindividual history of the members of the couple, the place that is devolved to the adopted child in the couple's imagination, and the commitment that both parents make in the common project. Their knowledge should prove to be useful to any professional who meets families who have experienced an international adoption.