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Title: |
Market forces: defining the adoptable child, 1860–1940. |
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Reference: |
Social Policy and Society, 11(3), July 2012, pp.399-414. |
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ISSN paper: |
1474-7464 |
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ISSN online: |
1475-3073 |
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Abstract: |
Legal adoption sought to regulate a process which had previously been governed by the principles of a free market. However, despite discomfort about the notion of adoption as facilitating a market in children, the market has never completely disappeared. This paper explores the nature of the market in Australia, beginning in the decades before legalisation but looking also for continuities in the ways in which in country and later intercountry adoptions have been debated. The study comprised a search of classified advertisement sections of local, regional and national newspapers across Australia, which had been digitised by the National Library of Australia. The search identified 15,152 unique entries published between 1860 and 1940. These advertisements provide an insight into the preferences of people who sought to adopt, preferences that became more difficult to articulate when adoption came under professional control. Drawing on an analysis of these advertisements, the article argues that benevolence always exists in an uneasy alliance with assumptions about the right to a child, creating a ‘shopping list’ of desired characteristics which the market has rarely been able to satisfy. |
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Journal home: |
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Format: |
article; |
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Topics: |
adopted children; adoption; adoptive parents; attitudes; marketing; mass media; |
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Record ID: |
www.scie-socialcareonline.org.uk/profile.asp?guid=7ec90b99-5f23-403b-b7e5-0beab54a9497 |
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