Cultural Tourism in Transnational Adoption: “Staged Authenticity” and Its Implications for Adopted Children

The discursive practices of adoptive parents in two online transnational adoption forums (2006-2008) and observations of five international adoption workshops suggest that what Heather Jacobson described as culture keeping, the cultural socialization of children that retains a sense of native group identity, is more aptly characterized as cultural tourism, the selective appropriation and consumption of renovated cultural symbols, artifacts, and events that serve as the source of identity construction for adopted children. A feature of consumer capitalism, cultural tourism in transnational adoption helps shape the contours of cultural and racial identity. It also provides a partial understanding of how adopted children often fail to develop hybrid identities and how adult adoptees exist on the margins of two cultures.