Adoptiefeesten cultuur, liefdadigheid en gemeenschapsvorming bij Vlaams-Ethiopische adoptiegezinnen
- Authors
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2016
- Source
- Ghent University Institutional Archive
- Keywords
- Language
- Dutch
- License
- Unknown
- External links
Abstract
Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews, this article analyses festive gatherings of Flemish parents with children adopted from Ethiopia as sites for community building, charity work and culture work. On the one hand, it reads the festive gatherings as ways of celebrating the non-normativity of adoptive families and ways of aiming to contribute to a more inclusive citizenship. It argues that the adoptive parents’ organizations and gatherings can be seen as “intimacy groups” developing their own visible and positive cultures that can leak into broader public spheres and have the capacity to enhance the public recognition and normalization of adoptive families in society at large. On the other hand, the article points to the risks of reifying and reproducing difference and inequality. It points to the problematic entanglement of the festivities (and of adoption) with narratives of philanthropy and rescue, which risks to reinforce a neocolonialist imagery of white people saving black people. It also interrogates the way in which the parents’ “culture work” connects the black children to an alleged “birth culture” of which they often have no memories, a practice that seems to be motivated by essentialist discourses of race, identity and culture, and fits within a discourse that lacks a critical awareness of power inequalities and white privilege.
