A dance of ambiguous constructions: White South African transracial adoptive and foster mothers' discourses on race (original) (raw)

White international transracial adoptive mothers' reflections on race

Child & Family Social Work, 2011

Through the use of qualitative data analysis of in-depth interviews with eight white international transracial adoptive mothers, four properties emerged that describe these mothers' racial views. These properties varied in the degree that they integrated perspectives different from the white dominant culture. The mothers did not experience significant changes in their perspective on race subsequent to adoption. This paper includes a discussion of white racial identity and implications for social work practice with transracially adoptive parents.

Growing men: reflections from South African feminist mothers on raising black sons in highly racialised contexts

In a society like South Africa in which inequality and injustice has both deep historical roots in race-based legislation, and where lingering material and symbolic effects of racism impact on the daily lives of people who are ‘raced’ as black (drawing on the black consciousness definition of all those who are oppressed on the basis of their perceived racial category), and one which follows global patterns of patriarchy, how do feminists approach raising their boy children in ways that help them deal with the impacts of, and defy the constraints of dominant social narratives of blackness and masculinities? This paper assumes that mothers who identify as feminist are interested in transgressing and transforming these social relations of inequality, and explores their backgrounds, impetus, understandings, desire for and strategies of raising ‘different men’. Six women who self-identify as feminist mothers who are involved in raising boys were sourced through social networks and a snowball sampling methodology. In depth, qualitative narrative unstructured interviews were recorded and transcribed for computer aided coding and analysis. Drawing on grounded and narrative approaches to analysis, which include incorporating theoretical insights from literature around feminist mothering, intersectionality, race, class, gender and an understanding of the South African context, a number of key themes emerged from the data. Dealing with racism was a real and present experience for all of these mothers, and their sons. Many were also deeply concerned about the constraining narratives of masculinities, and are working and thinking actively about mothering in ways to mediate the very strong social influences that structure these meanings. Some chose to try and shield their sons as much as possible, others used every experience as an opportunity for ‘engaged conversations’ to assist their sons in thinking critically. All made deliberate choices about the kinds of social and school spaces their son’s moved through in order to expose them to alternatives to dominant narratives, and all mothers emphasised the necessity of building a solid sense of self in their children. These mothers in many ways echo the themes present in literature around intensive mothering, with an added dimension of shouldering the burden of assisting their sons navigating a society which is often hostile to them. Despite the tensions inherent in this work of mothering, and the hardships, all displayed some level of hope or idealism about what could be possible for our society if their sons were raised in ways that crossed and defied social boundaries, and in some senses viewed their work as ‘a grand experiment’ working toward a socially just society.

Discursive Entwinement: How White Transracially Adoptive Parents Navigate Race

Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, 2016

Through 47 interviews with 56 White parents who attend culture camps, the authors analyze race discourse and practices in transracially adoptive families. The authors document parents’ use of two discursive frames, colorblindness and race consciousness, and find that small subsamples of parents use either race consciousness or colorblindness exclusively, while the majority (66 percent) entwine the two discursive frames together. Because the sample is drawn from culture camps, which emphasize race and ethnicity, this sample begins with some degree of racial attunement. As such, the continued presence of colorblindness among the sample indicates the deep rootedness of White hegemonic logic. However, the emergence of race consciousness indicates the potential for White transracially adoptive families to engage race critically. Moreover, the analyses draw a clear line between how parents articulate racial understandings in their interviews and the ways parents report talking about race ...

“But what story?” A narrative-discursive analysis of 'white' Afrikaner's accounts of male involvement in parenthood decision-making

2011

Despite the increased focus on men in reproductive research, little is known about male involvement in the initial decision/s regarding parenthood (i.e., to become a parent or not) and the subsequent decision-making that may ensue (e.g., choices about timing or spacing of births). In particular, the parenthood decision-making of “White”, heterosexual men from the middle class has been understudied, as indicated in the existing literature. In South Africa, this oversight has been exacerbated by the tendency for researchers to concentrate on “problematic” men, to the exclusion of the “boring, normal case”. I argue that this silence in the literature is a result of the taken for granted nature of parenthood in the “normal” heterosexual life course. In this study, I have turned the spotlight onto the norm of “Whiteness” and heterosexuality by studying those who have previously been overlooked by researchers. I focus on “White” Afrikaans men’s involvement in parenthood decision-making. My aim was to explore how constructions of gender inform male involvement in decision-making, especially within the South African context where social transformation has challenged traditional conceptions of male selfhood giving rise to new and contested masculine identities and new discourses of manhood and fatherhood. In an effort to ensure that women’s voices are not marginalised in the research, as is often the case in studies of men and masculinity, I conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews about male involvement in decision-making with both “White” Afrikaans women and men. There were 23 participants in total, who all identified as heterosexual and middle-class. The participants were divided into two age cohorts (21 – 30 years and >40 years), which were then differentiated according to gender, reproductive status, and relationship status. Treating the interviews as jointly produced narratives, I analysed them by means of a performativity/performance lens. This dual analytic lens focuses on how particular narrative performances are simultaneously shaped by the interview setting and the broader discursive context. The lens was fashioned by synthesising Butler’s theory of performativity with Taylor’s narrative-discursive method. This synthesis (1) allows for Butler’s notion of “performativity” to be supplemented with that of “performance”; (2) provides a concrete analytical strategy in the form of positioning analysis; and (3) draws attention to both the micro politics of the interview conversation and the operation of power on the macro level, including the possibility of making “gender trouble”. The findings of the study suggest that the participants experienced difficulty narrating about male involvement in parenthood decision-making, owing to the taken for granted nature of parenthood for heterosexual adults. This was evident in participants’ sidelining of issues of “deciding” and “planning” and their alternate construal of childbearing as a non-choice, which, significantly served to bolster hetero-patriarchal norms. A central rhetorical tool for accomplishing these purposes was found in the construction of the “sacralised” child. In discursively manoeuvring around the central problematic, the participants ultimately produced a “silence” in the data that repeats the one in the research literature.

Gazing into the mirror: Reflections of racial identity transformation in transnational and transracial adoptees

Journal of Social Distress and the Homeless

In order to understand the social construction of racial identity in adoptees, this paper utilizes the analysis of counter-narratives from Critical Race Theory to examine competing messages sent to adoptees by the adoptive family and society at large. By analyzing counter-narratives collected from both adoptees and adoptive parents, this study explores how the family and larger society influence racial identity development. The findings suggest a contrast in how the adoptee and adoptive parents define racism, which manifests in how they discuss race. Ultimately, each adoptee was able to take the messages the adoptive parent sent along with messages society provided and transform them into a personally meaningful racial identity.

Transmission and Change in South African Motherhood: Black Mothers in Three-Generational Cape Town Families

This article, drawing upon life history interviews with six families in three generations in Cape Town, explores the changes in the conceptualisation of motherhood. The study examines the practice of mothering, the ways that each generation talked about motherhood and the ways in which the identity of motherhood is transmitted over time and across the generations. In particular, the article investigates the ways in which marriage and motherhood have uncoupled within a changing socio-historical context. Findings from the South African-wide attitudinal survey and the case study demonstrate how structural and cultural changes influence the model of ‘good mothering’ in the youngest generation. The study found that notions of motherhood have changed from solely cultivating a ‘good provider and caring role’ to incorporate a growing emphasis on achieving personal goals and working on ‘the project of the self.’ The absence of men as participatory caregivers remains a continuous theme across generations. This research contributes fresh insights to the discussion of motherhood in South Africa while drawing on some of the broader contextualisation and generational models adopted in previous studies.

Mothering White children: An Africana Canadian woman’s experience

Unsafe environmental conditions, including parents' inability to care for them, abuse and high risk behaviour by their primary caregivers, force many children out of the places they call home. When they leave home, the Canadian state assumes immediate and sometimes long-term care for them. Caring involves being placed in foster homes that offer a balance between the needs of the children and the provisional abilities of the foster families. This is not unusual; however, placing a White foster child with a Black foster family, headed by a single woman in a middle class predominantly White suburb, offers sufficient challenges to warrant further exploration of how racist attitudes are maintained and transformed in everyday relationships between state representatives, the general White population and the Black family. This article explores my experience of ongoing tensions along racial lines while caring for children as a foster parent. Introduction This article explores my experien...