17 Apr 2014

Child circulation in and from China: An ethnographic account on the unpredicted consequences of the introduction of the Transnational Adoptive Program

Dr. Júlia Vich Bertran, MACIMIDE postdoctoral fellow, Maastricht University

This presentation unveils the ways in which macro-level factors such as national and transnational political and economic regimes, and global cultural discourses on child protection brought by the introduction of a Transnational Adoptive Program (CTAP) transform, redescribe and reproduce traditional practices of child circulation, altering the lives of certain types of children and generating stratified unequal paths to provide children for adoption to locals and foreigners. This Chinese case is based on two uninterrupted years of fieldwork in a Chinese central province.