Research project Embodiment and Experience in Transnational Adoption Narratives Through Film and Activism
Transnational adoption has largely been a transaction of non-white children from the Global South to white families in the so-called Global North driven by its consumer demand—a ‘quick fix’ to solve the problem of infertility and racism in the West.
Seen from a feminist postcolonial perspective, transnational and transracial adoption is a colonial project carried out by forcefully displacing individuals across the globe in addition to being a way of regulating and controlling marginalized women’s reproduction.
This research project explores representation(s) and narratives intersecting the experience of being transnationally and transracially adopted in art and activism from a decolonial approach—putting transnational and transracial adoption in the context of coloniality and modernity to challenge the hegemonic understanding of adoption. The project intends to fill the gap of lacking research regarding adoption and contribute by centering adoptees’ voices and bringing nuance and reclaim to the adoption narrative particularly focusing on the movements and debate predominantly in Sweden. It particularly takes an interest in activism and advocacy online, in which adopted and displaced people have begun to dispel the propaganda of adoption and create digital spaces to deal with the colonial wound. This study also analyzes art, in particular art films, created by transnationally and transracially adopted and displaced individuals to relate them to terms of self-agency and representation, thus, investigating how filmmaking can be a tool for activism in addition to a decolonial act and an in-flux process of identity formation. In that sense, the project focuses on forming a dialogue in an adoptee context and exploring themes of belonging and becoming—as a shapeshifting experience and in-mourning process of the Self and the Other; the human and non-human; land, culture; language; faith; and spirit.
The project is a part of the VR-funded Graduate School GENHDI (The Graduate School in Gender, Humanities, and Digital Culture), which seeks to explore how gender matters in digital culture and academic contexts. GENHDI is a collaboration between the Centre for Research (Uppsala University), the Department of Ethnology, History of Religion and Gender Studies (Stockholm University), and the School of Culture and Education (Södertörn University).
Project members
Project managers
Zara Luna Hjelm
Doktorand
