Leslie K Wang

Outsourced Children

Orphanage Care and Adoption in Globalizing China

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Leslie K. Wang is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Stanford University Press
• Seitenzahl: 208
• Erscheinungstermin: 31. August 2016
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 231mm x 152mm x 13mm
• Gewicht: 454g
• ISBN-13: 9780804799010
• ISBN-10: 0804799016
• Artikelnr.: 45000966

Autorenporträt

Leslie K. Wang

Inhaltsangabe

Contents and Abstracts
1Introduction: Children and the Politics of Outsourced Intimacy in China
chapter abstract
The introduction gives a broad overview of the book and locates the
circulation of children across families, institutions, and nations within
the larger context of the PRC's rapid global rise. Socio-economic
transitions and the increasingly competitive nature of Chinese society
marginalized offspring who are considered to lack future economic
potential. I draw attention to children's experiences within state-run
institutions that received aid from international humanitarian NGOs and the
ensuing conflicts over their care. This book explains how and why Chinese
authorities have permitted Western groups to use their own resources to
care for marginalized children in light of China's changing relationship
with the industrialized world.
2Survival of the Fittest: Relinquished Children in an Era of "High Quality"
chapter abstract
This chapter orients readers to the societal causes and consequences of
child abandonment in the reform era, a time of unprecedented economic
growth. As the Chinese government encourages parents to bear "high quality"
offspring for the sake of the nation, many rural daughters and special
needs children have been relinquished to state care. This chapter explores
how growing economic insecurity, stringent fertility regulations, and
cultural preferences for sons have devalued millions of healthy girls and
special needs children.
3From "Missing Girls" to America's Sweethearts: Adoption and the Reversal
of Fortune for Healthy Chinese Daughters
chapter abstract
Untold numbers of abandoned "missing girls" languished in state-run
orphanages until 1992, when the Chinese government first began its
international adoption program. Since then over 130,000 children have
joined families across a wide range of countries in the global north. This
chapter argues that foreign demand has transformed gender into an advantage
as girls have been transformed into priceless Western daughters. The
chapter explores the racialized and gendered reasons why these girls are so
highly sought after and discusses how this desire has stimulated an
underground market in babies. As China has become increasingly influential
globally, the number of healthy adoptable girls has declined. Moreover, in
recent years, the Chinese government has severely limited the eligibility
of Western parents while encouraging domestic placements. These shifts in
adoption trends therefore also demonstrate China's growing ability to
assert itself on the global stage using the symbolic value of its children.
4The West to the Rescue? Outsourced Intimacy in the Tomorrow's Children
Unit
chapter abstract
The global humanitarian aid industry's presence in China has allowed
government authorities to outsource intimate labor to highly resourced
foreign groups, which are motivated by their own child-saving agendas. This
chapter draws from fieldwork conducted in the Tomorrow's Children infant
palliative care unit. Thus unit, which was housed within the grounds of
Chinese state orphanages, were funded and managed by middle-class
evangelical Christian volunteers. Volunteers employed first-world medical
practices and universalistic ideologies regarding children's best interests
to care for the orphanages' children. This chapter examines conflicts that
erupted between Westerners and the local working-class Chinese caregivers
who were expected to implement the imported practices. This case shows that
children's "best interests" are not universal, but are instead shaped by
the surrounding context and access to resources. Moreover, the involvement
of Western institutions in Chinese orphanages can actually create
stratification between children in terms of their opportunities.
5The Limits of Outsourced Intimacy: Contested Logics of Care at the
Yongping Orphanage
chapter abstract
This chapter highlights the collaboration between the Helping Hands
organization, a group comprised of Western expatriate women volunteers, and
the Yongping Orphanage located outside of Beijing. This chapter argues that
the elite gendered space occupied by the volunteers led them to develop a
logic of care based solely in maternal nurturance. This logic permeated
their volunteer efforts, causing conflicts with Chinese state caregivers
who prioritized the performance of reproductive tasks such as cleaning and
laundry. These two irreconcilable logics of care caused recurring friction
and ambivalence on both sides. Thus, the tensions involved in this
transnational care collaboration illustrate the complexity of global
humanitarian efforts in non-Western contexts.
6Waiting Children Finally Belong: The Rise of Special Needs Adoption
chapter abstract
Although most scholarly attention has centered on healthy female adoptees,
in recent years a growing number of special needs children have been placed
in foreign homes. This chapter draws on fieldwork in Tomorrow's Children
special care units to highlight efforts taking place in China to transform
unwanted disabled children into internationally desirable daughters and
sons. In the special care units, processes of outsourced intimacy remade
marginalized youth into first-world citizens who were prepared for
middle-class lives abroad. This chapter also highlight the role that
American Christian evangelicals have played in popularizing an "adoption
movement" that seeks to promote U.S. moral authority around the world
through the adoption of individual children.
7Conclusion: Retying the Red Thread
chapter abstract
The final chapter discusses the larger implications of this study. It
reviews the argument and considers the extent to which the Chinese
government's outsourcing of intimacy to global humanitarian organizations
and actors has impacted the lives of institutionalized children. The
chapter returns to the author's two main ethnographic fieldsites and
discusses the implications of outsourced intimacy on new waves of Chinese
adoptees who are making the decision to return to China as tourists or to
attempt to locate their birth parents. The concluding section explores the
significance of child abandonment, orphanage care, and transnational
adoption in terms of China's continuing fraught relationship with the
industrialized world.