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- Title
A Technology of Family: Photography and Kinship Formation in Transnational Adoption from Asia.
- Authors
Johnson, LiLi
- Abstract
This essay theorizes the role of referral photography, photographs sent to prospective adoptive parents upon assignment of a child, in the formation and racialization of kinship within transnational adoption from Asia. Because the practice is used across domestic and transnational adoption, adoption from Asia offers a case study for which to understand how systems like photography can function as, what I call, a technology of family that has the potential not only to record or represent kinship but also to actively participate in its construction in new and racializing ways. Using archival accounts of adoption from China alongside Korean adoptee Deann Borshay Liem's film In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee , this essay analyzes referral photographs as narrative objects that perform a particular role in the kinship formation process, one that facilitates the affective inclusion of the child into the family while racializing the child within a system of interchangeability. I also show how these photographs can be used beyond their initial function to discover new forms of "adoptive" kinship.
- Subjects
ASIA; CHINA; INTERNATIONAL adoption; ADOPTION; ADOPTIVE parents; KINSHIP; PHOTOGRAPHY; FAMILIES; RACIALIZATION
- Publication
American Quarterly, 2022, Vol 74, Issue 4, p921
- ISSN
0003-0678
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1353/aq.2022.0063