Trans-racial adoption : the fantasy of the global family

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.