Families We Need by Erin Raffety

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Families We Need by Erin Raffety

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Summary

Set in the remote, mountainous Guangxi Autonomous Region and based on ethnographic fieldwork, Families We Need traces the movement of three Chinese foster children, Dengrong, Pei Pei, and Meili, from the state orphanage into the humble, foster homes of Auntie Li, Auntie Ma, and Auntie Huang.

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Families We Need by Erin Raffety

Families We Need is an ethnography of the temporary, yet transformative relationships between disenfranchised, older foster mothers and disabled, orphaned foster children in China, and the power of these seemingly marginal relationships to confront state power, disrupt intercountry adoption, and challenge our assumptions about the limits of foster kinship.
"Families We Need is a brilliant and warmly empathic bookWritten with grace and lucidity, it elevates readers’ understanding of the need for family, and of how neediness can be a source of strength, and even abundance." -- Kathie Carpenter * Author of Life in a Cambodian Orphanage *
"Raffety’s work provides a rare and precious view on foster care and other kinship practices in mountainous Southwest China, showing us their deep entanglements with forces of urbanization and globalization. It reveals how life-transforming care could emerge where the most vulnerable individuals encounter each other, quietly resisting the deeply-seated biases of ableism, classism, and even imperialism. The book exemplifies the most empathic and humanizing type of ethnography." -- Zhiying Ma * Assistant Professor at The University of Chicago *
"Families We Need is a brilliant and warmly empathic book. Written with grace and lucidity, it elevates readers’ understanding of the need for family, and of how neediness can be a source of strength, and even abundance." -- Kathie Carpenter * Author of Life in a Cambodian Orphanage *
"Raffety’s work provides a rare and precious view on foster care and other kinship practices in mountainous Southwest China, showing us their deep entanglements with forces of urbanization and globalization. It reveals how life-transforming care could emerge where the most vulnerable individuals encounter each other, quietly resisting the deeply-seated biases of ableism, classism, and even imperialism. The book exemplifies the most empathic and humanizing type of ethnography." -- Zhiying Ma * Assistant Professor at The University of Chicago *
ERIN RAFFETY is a research fellow at the Center for Theological Inquiry, an empirical research consultant at Princeton Theological Seminary, and an associate research scholar at Princeton Seminary's Institute for Youth Ministry. Raffety researches and writes on disability, congregational ministry, and church leadership and is an advocate for disabled people.
SKU Unavailable
ISBN 13 9781978829299
ISBN 10 1978829299
Title Families We Need
Author Erin Raffety
Condition Unavailable
Binding Type Paperback
Publisher Rutgers University Press
Year published 2022-11-11
Number of pages 220
Cover note Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.