1. Objectifs

Intentions :
« This chapter identifies some of the main adoption-related social issues that have risen in Québec since the 1980s and examines the relational dynamics among the stakeholders in the three temporal dimensions of adoption in order to underline the limits of plenary adoption, especially in intercountry contexts. » (p. 81)

2. Méthode

Type de traitement des données :
Réflexion critique

3. Résumé

« In Quebec [...] the only legal form of adoption is plenary adoption, which entails the complete dissolution of the child’s original kinship ties. The child becomes not only a full member of the adoptive family, as if born into it, but also a legal stranger to his or her birth parents and other birth relatives. This transformation of identity is too often thought of as the inevitable and most desirable effect of adoption. Yet plenary adoption cannot always provide transnationally adopted children with an identity and kinship affiliation consistent with their personal histories and their particular needs and interests. Plenary adoption need not be the only option, however. [...] All these different agents must collaborate on promoting the interests of children, but their particular interests give rise to divergent views and even confrontations. [...] The principal stakes for which they invest their time, energy, and material, political, or symbolic capital are articulated to the three temporal dimensions of adoption explored in this chapter. First, the length of the legal and administrative process of intercountry adoption triggered the struggles for power and legitimacy that birthed the field. Second, the child’s development gradually became a major clinical and ethical concern, prompting governmental adoption and youth protection services to overhaul their practices and giving rise to new types of influential expertise. Third, genealogical transmission has recently produced new practices and attitudes with regard to the symbolic issue of identity and the right of adoptees to know their origins. » (p. 69-71)