Adoption Matters: Philosophical and Feminist Essays. Edited
by Sally Haslanger and Charlotte Witt. Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
2004. 336p. $49.95 cloth, $22.95 paper.
This is a fruitful collection of essays focusing on adoption in order
to explore “deeply held but often tacit assumptions about what in
human life is natural and what is social” (p. 1). The editors
rightly recognize that adoption is a social practice through which family
and identity are explicitly shaped and regulated by social institutions.
They explore this notion in contrast to the ideological view of family and
identity as “natural,” “genetic,” and
“biological.” They argue that “[w]e need to
ask of families: how have the institutions shaped our understandings of
family, and how might critical reflection on these understandings help us
reshape the institutions to be more just?” (p. 8). The anthology is
organized around three general areas of concern:
“‘Natural’ and ‘Unnatural’ Families,”
“Familial Relationships and Personal Identities,” and
“Constructions of Race and Constructions of Family.” While
some contributions are stronger than others, overall the anthology
achieves the authors' goal of creating a “context for
rethinking family and adoption, and the norms and rules that govern them,
in a more humane and just fashion” (p. 15).