Womanhood and Motherhood Renegotiated through Transnational Adoption
At the Center: Feminism, Social Science and Knowledge
ISBN: 978-1-78560-079-1, eISBN: 978-1-78560-078-4
Publication date: 21 August 2015
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this chapter is to examine the ways in which gender is socially constructed through transnational adoption.
Methodology/approach
Feminist methodologies and reflexivity are put into practice. Life histories of women who participate in transnational adoptions are presented.
Findings
Life history narratives shed light on how these particular women, through the process of transnational adoption, experience gender differently and in more complex ways. Adoptive mothers’ negotiations (and renegotiations) of their own gender contribute to our understandings of how motherhood (and, thereby, womanhood) is constructed in broader society.
Research limitations/implications
Life histories provide rich, thick descriptions of social life. However, they are limited in terms of reliability and making generalizations about larger populations.
Practical implications
This chapter engages the reader, scholars, students, practitioners, and policy-makers in contemplating the processes of motherhood and womanhood.
Social implications
The chapter is a building block for future research on this topic and challenges our understandings of “motherhood” and “womanhood.”
Originality/value
This chapter is unique in that I include my own life narrative and story of becoming a mother through transnational adoption. Through reflexivity, the researcher becomes the subject and vice versa. These life history narratives offer insight through their expressions of “everyday knowledge” (Hill Collins, 2000) and bring new dimensions to the study of gender as these women’s experiences are situated within the intersections of the global economy, specific political systems, and individual identities.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgments
A very special thanks to the families who shared their stories with me and to my own constructed family of Christopher, Laxmi, and Xiang. I am grateful to our mothers who were in Nepal with us – especially my mom Ruth Rothchild. And thank you to Jennifer Deane, Julie Eckerle, Haley Van Cleve, Jennifer Fish, Jonathan Rothchild, Charlotte Radler, Marcia Texler Segal, and Vasilikie Demos for their feedback on drafts of this chapter.
Citation
Rothchild, J. (2015), "Womanhood and Motherhood Renegotiated through Transnational Adoption", At the Center: Feminism, Social Science and Knowledge (Advances in Gender Research, Vol. 20), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 133-150. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1529-212620150000020007
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2015 Emerald Group Publishing Limited