[URBANTH-L]CFP: Geographies of International Adoption

Brownlow, Alec cbrownlo at depaul.edu
Tue Sep 18 11:15:20 EDT 2007


Call for Papers: 2008 AAG Annual Meeting, Boston

**Apologies for Cross-Positing**

Title: Geographies of International Adoption
Organizer: Alec Brownlow (DePaul University, Department of Geography)

International, or intercountry, adoption - that is the adoption of
children from one nation by adopting parent(s) of a different nation -
is a phenomenon that is rapidly growing both in depth (i.e., the number
of children adopted annually) and breadth (i.e., the number of nations
involved on both sides of the process - sending and receiving). The
movement of young children, often by the thousands annually, from -
especially - the global south (e.g., Guatemala, Honduras, Ethiopia,
Vietnam), newly industrialized countries (e.g., Central Asian states),
and emerging economic powers (i.e., China and India) to - especially -
the global north (i.e., Western Europe and the United States) has
received little geographic inquiry or theoretical framing. Nor has the
recent and stellar growth of the 'international adoption industry' over
the last decade and a half. The aim of this session is to begin to
develop a conceptual framework through which to explore and better
understand the international adoption phenomenon in all of its
geographic complexity - from the spatial, to the social, the economic,
political, and cultural. This session invites papers that cover a
diversity of topics surrounding the issue.

For instance: 
*	What are the impacts, implications, and patterns of this
international movement of children at local, regional, national, and
global scales?
*	What are the gendered, racial, and/or ethnic impacts,
implications, and patterns of international adoption?
*	What are the implications of international adoption for
hegemonic ideas and social constructions of family, community,
citizenship, and the 'other'?
*	What is/are the implications of this emerging demographic for
the creation, production, and/or destruction of public spaces and their
meanings?
*	What are the geopolitics of international adoption and how are
they changing?
*	What explains the growth and expansion of the international
adoption industry in the global north? The global south?
*	Do changing geographies of global wealth have impact on
international child movement?
*	What are the relationships of the international adoption
industry with scale-specific neoliberalizations and urban redevelopment?
*	Others????

Please send a notice of interest or intent to Dr. Alec Brownlow at
cbrownlo at depaul.edu by October 1st. Abstracts by October 15th.

********

Alec Brownlow, Ph.D.
Department of Geography
DePaul University
990 W. Fullerton Avenue
Chicago, IL 60614
phone: 773.325.7876
fax: 773.325.4590 




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