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aCknowledgments Aproject of this duration and complexity involves so many people who enabled, enriched, encouraged, and otherwise helped me in the process. I owe much to Jennifer Wells, adoption advocate and family counselor, who guided my first research into adoption and with whom I spent many a fruitful hour discussing the politics and dynamics of adoption. Rosemary Broadbent offered her insights and experience in looking at the adoption process itself. Rachel Port got involved in the adoption research from the outset, and we became friends as well as fellow travelers: I am grateful to her for our dozens of kitchen table talks and so much more. I thank the many participants in the research project, who have been more than generous with their time and experiences. Some of the interviews were painful, others thrilling, many poignant, all of which helped me reexperience the intensity that sometimes accompanies research. I hope that these adopters and their families find the results useful, even at points where they might disagree with my interpretation of the narratives. Colleagues in the Association of Black Anthropologists gave me counsel and insight into child rearing in a racist society and the kinship dynamics of race identity in adolescence. The framing of the chapter on transracial adoption owes much to Lynn Bolles, Cheryl Mwaria, and Angela Gilliam, as well as Jennifer and Tim Welles, Ida Susser, Karen Brodkin, Ethan NasreddinLongo , and Enoch Page. Mary Anglin helped me realize the significance of the research on parenting older girls for feminist theorization of gendered violence. Heléna Ragoné pushed the argument regarding infertility and ideologies of adoptive motherhood in ways that were very productive. Ida Susser heard many of the arguments in the formative stages and helped me concentrate on the most salient issues; I deeply appreciate her editorial suggestions. My conversations with Lisa Edelsward on similarities and differences between adoption in the United States and Canada and about recent research  acknowledgments on neurological changes after early trauma have informed my arguments on older child and transracial adoption. I want to thank a number of Canadian colleagues for validating the research when it was not so widespread in the United States. Sally Cole buoyed me at a low point and introduced me to the stimulating research of Chantal Collard and Françoise Ouelette. Richard Lee, Michael Lambek, Harriet Rosenberg, Jackie Solway, and Gavin Smith helped me realize implications of adoption for kinship theory. I want to thank the Wenner-Gren Foundation and the organizers of the Symposium “New Directions in Kinship Studies: A Core Concept Revisited”; Pauline Turner Strong, Signe Howell, and Kath Weston were especially helpful in their comments regarding changing ideologies of kinship and maternity. I am particularly grateful to Signe and Anne-Lise Rygvold, Monica Dalen, and Babro Saetersdal of the PLUS “Yours, Mine,Ours—and Theirs” conference on international adoption, held in Oslo, Norway, for introducing me to one of the most congenial and intellectually exciting group of scholars I have ever encountered. I want to single out John Triseliotis, Peter Selman, Kathy Mason, and Jon Telfer for their insights into the political economy of international adoption. The chapter on international adoption owes a great deal to that extraordinary conference. Audrey Aduama and Barbara Schram were generous in discussing their participant observation of adoptive and foster kinship and interracial family dynamics. I thank the graduate students in my family and kinship courses at both Northeastern University and the University of California, Riverside, for discussions of contemporary dynamics of reproduction and family formation . I have had a decade-long conversation about gender and kinship in the United States with my colleagues Gordana Rabrenovic, Debra Kaufman, Lynn Stephen, and Ellen Herman that shifted with our families’ developments . Katherine Krohn and Susan Melito offered their insights into the politics of lesbian adoption, and I thank them for that and for sharing their delightful family during patches both rough and smooth. Colleagues and staff in the Women’s Studies Department at the University of California, Riverside, have shown steadfast encouragement during the writing process and an intellectual vitality unrivaled in my experience of the academy. Carlos Vélez-Ibáñez removed many obstacles and paved our pathway to the West Coast. Margie Waller has been especially generous with her time and critical commentaries on the arguments and early drafts of several chapters. Irma Kemp read drafts and made me laugh at foibles. Amalia Cabezas and Scott Coltrane have heard most of the arguments for the book and given their incisive...

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