Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- PART ONE WHAT MAKES A MARKET? EFFICIENCY, ACCOUNTABILITY, AND RELIABILITY OR GETTING THE BABIES WE WANT
- 1 Baby Markets
- 2 The Upside of Baby Markets
- 3 Price and Pretense in the Baby Market
- 4 Bringing Feminist Fundamentalism to U.S. Baby Markets
- 5 Producing Kinship through the Marketplaces of Transnational Adoption
- PART TWO SPACE AND PLACE: REPRODUCING AND REFRAMING SOCIAL NORMS OF RACE, CLASS, GENDER, AND OTHERNESS
- PART THREE SPECTRUMS AND DISCOURSES: RIGHTS, REGULATIONS, AND CHOICE
- PART FOUR THE ETHICS OF BABY AND EMBRYO MARKETS
- PART FIVE TENUOUS GROUNDS AND BABY TABOOS
- Author Bios
- Index
- References
1 - Baby Markets
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- PART ONE WHAT MAKES A MARKET? EFFICIENCY, ACCOUNTABILITY, AND RELIABILITY OR GETTING THE BABIES WE WANT
- 1 Baby Markets
- 2 The Upside of Baby Markets
- 3 Price and Pretense in the Baby Market
- 4 Bringing Feminist Fundamentalism to U.S. Baby Markets
- 5 Producing Kinship through the Marketplaces of Transnational Adoption
- PART TWO SPACE AND PLACE: REPRODUCING AND REFRAMING SOCIAL NORMS OF RACE, CLASS, GENDER, AND OTHERNESS
- PART THREE SPECTRUMS AND DISCOURSES: RIGHTS, REGULATIONS, AND CHOICE
- PART FOUR THE ETHICS OF BABY AND EMBRYO MARKETS
- PART FIVE TENUOUS GROUNDS AND BABY TABOOS
- Author Bios
- Index
- References
Summary
Watt and her husband, Jason Hillard, residents of Athens, Ohio, wanted to adopt a child. When they saw Jolie on that magazine cover with her adopted daughter, their decision to raise a child from Ethiopia was clear.
And with that magical stroke of the pen, the door to a whole world of plentiful, newborn, brown-skinned little boys … opened up to me from behind the curtain marked, “Doesn't Care.”
– Patricia WilliamsThe recent backlash against famed pop musician and actress Madonna in her attempt to adopt a little girl from Malawi highlights a growing social tension and cultural criticism in transnational adoptions. In that case, the celebrity was criticized for using her status to skirt the country's stricter adoption criteria, which includes a yearlong residency requirement. Madonna's public life perhaps offers an unfair advantage to critics, who can trace her lifestyle and travels through the Internet, Twitter, and newspapers. To them, international residency requirements are a farce, especially when celebrities can circumvent such routine protocols by exploiting the financial weaknesses of governments. By donating funds to the state or establishing charities in those countries, celebrities can seemingly expedite the adoption process in ways that middle-class people, who wait years, cannot.
Clearly, with photos emerging of Madonna and her newest lover in South America and the United States, she has not been spending much personal or professional time in Malawi. But should that matter, so long as a child is relieved from poverty?
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Baby MarketsMoney and the New Politics of Creating Families, pp. 2 - 22Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010
References
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