Abstract
This chapter focuses on the concept of trans-racial adoption of children and adults. Despite recent concentration on white families adopting non-white children, we identify how the opposite was a regular occurrence during the classical colonial period. The existence of these inverted trans-racial adoptions is well documented in literary and autobiographical texts, historical and official documents, as well as in art and visual culture. This chapter aims at re-conceptualising trans-racial adoption within the framework of the European's fundamental inability to attach to lands and peoples outside Europe by making use of the concepts of indigenisation and autochtonisation.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | On Whiteness |
| Editors | Nicky Falkof, Oliver Cashman-Brown |
| Place of Publication | U.K. |
| Publisher | Inter-Disciplinary Press |
| Pages | 275-284 |
| Number of pages | 10 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9781848881051 |
| Publication status | Published - 2012 |
Keywords
- whiteness
- adoption
- trans-racial families
- literature
- colonialism
- indigenisation
- autochtonisation