Adoption Is Stranger than Fiction

A special issue of Genealogy (ISSN 2313-5778).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 September 2025) | Viewed by 2046

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Department of Classics and Centre for Hellenic Studies, King's College London, London WC2R 2LS, UK
Interests: modern Greek language; literature, history, and memory; especially relating to adoption movements and the public sphere modern productions of classical Greek theatre: performance criticism, reception, authoritarianism and censorship, gender studies, cultur; heritage studies and the politics of the past

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We seek abstracts for a Special Issue of Genealogy that will focus on intercountry adoption in its post-WWII forms, irrespective of national/ethnic origin or destination. Our Special Issue’s title is meant to suggest that well-laid plans and intentions can work out in unforeseen ways, affecting many more people than the adopted persons and the members of the first family. Of interest are:

  • Analyses and comparisons of accounts that may come from any parties involved in post-war intercountry adoptions and that draw on pertinent sources and/or life-cycle documentation (memoirs, letters, diaries, and other life-writing sources).
  • Lived experiences that are underpinned by theoretical perspectives and that engage with the current critical literature and scholarship and/or archival or other kinds of “elusive” sources.
  • Analyses of more creative interpretations, whether critical or not, e.g., novels drawing on intercountry adoption.
  • Explorations of post-WWII cross-border adoptions in popular media.
  • Analyses of personal, communal, national, political, diplomatic, legal, cultural, and other conditions, whether prevalent at the time that the “historical” adoptions took place or dominant in more recent decades.
  • Analyses or reports on country-focused longitudinal investigations.
  • Papers examining current adoptee activism.
  • Papers exploring root searches, reunions with biological parents, and/or post-reunion relationships. Of special interest are the voices of the adopted persons themselves, who have traditionally been less represented than the adoptive parents.

Please send an English-language abstract of maximum 350 words to Prof. Gonda Van Steen. Make sure that the abstract also addresses your methodology. The abstract should be received no later than 1 May 2025. The authors of abstracts will be notified of a decision by 25 May 2025. Full manuscript submissions will be invited by 1 September 2025 and need to be submitted in the template of the journal on the Genealogy MDPI platform. Manuscripts undergo double-blind peer review and follow the regular procedures of the journal Genealogy. Ideally, final manuscripts should be between 7000 and 10,000 words, and illustrations are welcome (with the proper permissions).

Prof. Dr. Gonda Van Steen
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Genealogy is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • child adoption
  • post-WWII intercountry adoption
  • adoption archives
  • lived experience
  • adoptee search and reunion

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

25 pages, 694 KB  
Article
Adoption Agrafa, Parts ‘Unwritten’ About Cold War Adoptions from Greece: Adoption Is a Life in a Sentence, Adoption Is a Life Sentence
by Gonda A. H. Van Steen
Genealogy 2025, 9(3), 81; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy9030081 - 20 Aug 2025
Viewed by 370
Abstract
This essay focuses on the Greek adoptees’ search for identity and on the agrafa, or the “unwritten” territories, into which this search penetrates. The Greek adoptees represent an underresearched case study of the postwar intercountry adoption movement (1950–1975). Creating a narrative of [...] Read more.
This essay focuses on the Greek adoptees’ search for identity and on the agrafa, or the “unwritten” territories, into which this search penetrates. The Greek adoptees represent an underresearched case study of the postwar intercountry adoption movement (1950–1975). Creating a narrative of the self is key to the adoptees’ identity formation, but their personal narrative is often undermined by stereotypes and denunciations that stunt its development. The research presented here has been guided by questions that interrogate the verdict-making or “sentencing” associated with the adoptees’ identity-shaping process: their sentencing to subjugation by stock opinions, the denouncing of their alternative viewpoints about “rescue” adoptions, and the verdict of their entrapment in feel-good master narratives. This essay also explores broader research questions pertaining to modes of interrogating “historic” adoptions from Greece. It is concerned with the why rather than with the how or the who of the oldest, post-WWII intercountry adoption flows. In what forums and genres (narrative, visual, journalistic, scholarly) are Greek adoption facts and legacies articulated, mediated, and/or materialized? How do memories, both positive and negative, underpin current projects of self-identification and transformation? What are the adoptees’ preferred outlets to speak about embodied experiences, and are those satisfactory? Based on a mixed methods approach, the essay ties these steps in identity growth to the Adoptee Consciousness Model, illustrating the five phases of consciousness that the adoptees may experience throughout their lives. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Adoption Is Stranger than Fiction)
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20 pages, 321 KB  
Article
The Swedish Adoption World and the Process of Coming to Terms with Transnational Adoption
by Tobias Hübinette
Genealogy 2025, 9(3), 77; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy9030077 - 6 Aug 2025
Viewed by 748
Abstract
In October 2021 the Swedish government committee of inquiry, the Adoption Commission, was appointed, which presented its final report in June 2025. The Adoption Commission investigated irregular and unethical adoptions to Sweden from the 1950s until today, and it was a part of [...] Read more.
In October 2021 the Swedish government committee of inquiry, the Adoption Commission, was appointed, which presented its final report in June 2025. The Adoption Commission investigated irregular and unethical adoptions to Sweden from the 1950s until today, and it was a part of an ongoing global process of coming to terms with past concerning transnational adoptions. This qualitative media text study examines how the Adoption Commission was perceived by the Swedish adoption world’s three stakeholders, the adoptive parents, the adoption organizations, and the adoptees, between 2021 and 2024 and in relation to transitional justice theories, with a focus on the issues of retributive and restorative justice. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Adoption Is Stranger than Fiction)
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