Intercountry Adoption and the Inappropriate/d Other: Refusing the Disappearance of Birth Families

Abstract

Dominant social norms relating to families shape the lives of all people. This can have negative effects upon non-traditional families. This is especially the case in terms of adoption, where a focus solely on the adoptive family can often result in the ‘disappearance’ of the birth family. This paper explores the location of birth families in relation to adoptive families by examining a sample of children's storybooks aimed at adoptive children living with lesbian or gay parents as but one example of how policy makers may come to identify dominant cultural norms that circulate about birth families in the context of intercountry adoption. A number of key tropes are identified across these books, namely the ghostly presence of birth families, and the representation of birth parents as deviant (thus warranting the removal of their children).