Adoption Matters: Philosophical and Feminist Essays

Extract

Adoption Matters: Philosophical and Feminist Essays. Edited by Sally Haslanger and Charlotte Witt. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004. 336p. $49.95 cloth, $22.95 paper.

This is a fruitful collection of essays focusing on adoption in order to explore “deeply held but often tacit assumptions about what in human life is natural and what is social” (p. 1). The editors rightly recognize that adoption is a social practice through which family and identity are explicitly shaped and regulated by social institutions. They explore this notion in contrast to the ideological view of family and identity as “natural,” “genetic,” and “biological.” They argue that “[w]e need to ask of families: how have the institutions shaped our understandings of family, and how might critical reflection on these understandings help us reshape the institutions to be more just?” (p. 8). The anthology is organized around three general areas of concern: “‘Natural’ and ‘Unnatural’ Families,” “Familial Relationships and Personal Identities,” and “Constructions of Race and Constructions of Family.” While some contributions are stronger than others, overall the anthology achieves the authors' goal of creating a “context for rethinking family and adoption, and the norms and rules that govern them, in a more humane and just fashion” (p. 15).