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"‘Dads, Are We There Yet?’ Queer Interracial Adoption & Autobiographical Calls for Recognition."

Interdisziplinäre Ringvorlesung. Queer_Verbindungen: Gender Studies jenseits der binären Geschlechterordnung

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Interracial adoption represents a controversial kinship practice. Over the last decades, it has been variously positioned, for instance, as an alleged proof of colorblindness, as an anti-racist act, or, conversely, as part of a continuum in white exploitation of black bodies. Focusing on the U.S. context, this talk introduces the main arguments of an ongoing debate and examines how contemporary memoirs on queer interracial adoption articulate calls for social recognition. I contextualize the phenomenon within a larger movement toward ‘multiracialism’ and explore the following questions: Why have queerness and interraciality been historically understood as antithetical to ‘American family’? How is this opposition resolved in the narratives’ demand for cultural recognition? How do these memoirs respond to previous traditions of queer kinship politics? What are the connections between a racialized state punishment system and the possibility of queer adoption? And what are the ways in which the U.S. adoptive system extends to queer community here in Germany?

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