Attachment as Affective Assimilation: Discourses on Love and Kinship in the Context of Transnational Adoption in Denmark
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Attachment as Affective Assimilation : Discourses on Love and Kinship in the Context of Transnational Adoption in Denmark . / Bissenbakker, Mons; Myong, Lene.
I: NORA - Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, Bind 29, Nr. 3, 2, 2021, s. 165-177.Publikation: Bidrag til tidsskrift › Tidsskriftartikel › Forskning › fagfællebedømt
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Attachment as Affective Assimilation
T2 - Discourses on Love and Kinship in the Context of Transnational Adoption in Denmark
AU - Bissenbakker, Mons
AU - Myong, Lene
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - This article attempts to initiate a critical dialogue on the politics of love and attachment by investigating the way in which the concept of attachment governs the field of transnational adoption. We take our starting point in an analysis of a collection of background articles, teaching materials, and interviews produced by child psychologists as well as instructions to and testimonies from adopters. Reading the material through Sara Ahmed’s notion of affective orientation and Lauren Berlant’s critical deconstruction of love, we argue that the texts popularise and instrumentalise John Bowlby’s framework of attachment theory in ways that connect attachment to specific notions of love. Even though the aim seems to be the strengthening of intimate familial ties in adoptive families and ensuring feelings of kinship and security for the adoptee, the notion of attachment-as-love simultaneously organises a narrative logic that positions the adoptee in a deadlock between pathologisation and the demand for affective assimilation into the adoptive family. Our reading seeks to invite a more critical approach to notions of the attachment paradigm as an idealised route to affective belonging and psychological well-being for adoptees.
AB - This article attempts to initiate a critical dialogue on the politics of love and attachment by investigating the way in which the concept of attachment governs the field of transnational adoption. We take our starting point in an analysis of a collection of background articles, teaching materials, and interviews produced by child psychologists as well as instructions to and testimonies from adopters. Reading the material through Sara Ahmed’s notion of affective orientation and Lauren Berlant’s critical deconstruction of love, we argue that the texts popularise and instrumentalise John Bowlby’s framework of attachment theory in ways that connect attachment to specific notions of love. Even though the aim seems to be the strengthening of intimate familial ties in adoptive families and ensuring feelings of kinship and security for the adoptee, the notion of attachment-as-love simultaneously organises a narrative logic that positions the adoptee in a deadlock between pathologisation and the demand for affective assimilation into the adoptive family. Our reading seeks to invite a more critical approach to notions of the attachment paradigm as an idealised route to affective belonging and psychological well-being for adoptees.
KW - Faculty of Humanities
KW - transnational adoption
KW - Intimacy
KW - emotion
KW - love
KW - pathologisation
U2 - 10.1080/08038740.2021.1891133
DO - 10.1080/08038740.2021.1891133
M3 - Journal article
VL - 29
SP - 165
EP - 177
JO - NORA - Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research
JF - NORA - Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research
SN - 0803-8740
IS - 3
M1 - 2
ER -
ID: 255457752