Topic: Intercountry adoption; legal issues and gaps
Author
Chiara Candaele, Universiteit Antwerpen, History, Antwerpen, Belgium (Presenting Author)
1 Universiteit Antwerpen, Antwerpen, Belgium
Background/significance
I have a PhD in History and am currently affiliated with the Centre for Political History (UAntwerp). I am interested in the intersections of power and care in postwar and postcolonial Europe and have specialised in the contemporary history of childhood and youth.
Aim
This presentation will highlight the findings of my dissertation, which studies how transnational adoptions have been legitimised in Belgium since the end of the Second World War (1945-2000). As such, it presents the first scholarly account that examines transnational adoption in Belgium from a historical viewpoint.
Project description or research methods
Through a close-reading of archival documents kept in various public and private holdings and series of adoption case files from various ‘sending countries’ (Vietnam, Rwanda and India), this dissertation studies the discourses and documentary practices that historically justified the transnational transfers of large groups of children to Belgium. Such a historical-genealogical approach also makes it possible to expound historical evolutions in thinking about children’s ‘best interests’.
Results
A key premise of this study is that transnational adoption never attained a normative constitution but should instead be approached as a ‘practice of exception’. The findings also reveal the significance of Catholic contributions to the development of transnational adoption networks and practices, which have been insufficiently addressed and examined in the existing literature.
Discussion and implications
The findings displayed in this dissertation prompt us to rethink multiple popular adoption narratives. The study takes issue with the ‘pink cloud’-metaphor that has informed narrations of past adoptions in the Low Countries and argues instead that transnational adoption has constituted the topic of juridical, social and political controversy since the end of WW2. The dissertation also brings a discussion about the implication of historians in the growing number of investigative committees regarding illegal adoptions.
