Adoption Narratives, Trauma, and Origins

Parents at their best: The ethopolitics of family bonding in France

“…In the first case, which concerns the provision of maternal mental health care, the treatment is meant to prevent the mother's depression from causing psychic damage to the child. In the second case, during the adoption process, the inquiry aims to ensure, to the greatest extent possible, that the Version auteurs -Acceptée pour publication A paraître dans Ethnography Version OnlineFirst disponible 4 applicants will fulfill their parental function in a correct manner, with respect to a traumatized child "who has already been abandoned once" (Homans, 2006). More broadly, scholars have documented how be(com)ing a parent -and behaving accordingly -has been framed as a difficult task requiring institutional intervention.…”

“I Always Wanted to Look at Another Human and Say I Can See That Human in Me”: Understanding Genealogical Bewilderment in the Context of Racialised Intercountry Adoptees

“…Crucially, GB needs to be understood within the framework of western cultures equating biological origins with identity and belonging (Homans 2006).…”

“…It is important to note that this criticism is largely grounded within a philosophical framework, and is not based on any empirical evidence that is grounded in the lived experiences of adoptees struggling to locate and connect with their birth families. Indeed, as others have argued, a western societal context that equates biological origins with identity and belonging, and where histories of colonialism, slavery, and racialization dominate; this may contribute to situations where biological roots serve to provide the much-needed security and belonging (Homans 2006;Kim 2018).…”

De‐tangling Motherhood: Adoption Narratives in Disney's Tangled

“…Unlike many contemporary novels about adoption in which, Margaret Homans argues, authentic origin stories are constructed and fictionalized rather than found and stabilized (“Adoption Narratives” 14), Tangled provides a clear and simple, albeit romanticized, origin story for its protagonist. In a distinct deviation from the Brothers Grimm's version of the fairy tale, the film's Rapunzel finally finds her lost biological mother, whom, not surprisingly, she resembles: Rapunzel has the same eyes, same hair, same features as her birthmother—all clearly Caucasian, made even more obvious by the fact that her birthmother, through, we assume, the power of the flower she has eaten, has not aged.…”