A Critical Lens on US "State Care": Foster Care, Racism, and Colonization

Abstract

ABSTRACT:This essay considers the history of Critical Adoption Studies, the field's formative scholarship on kinship development and family formation, and then critically interrogates the US foster care system. In this examination, the legal entanglements between juvenile justice and foster care are highlighted with a focus on the systems of Washington state and their disproportionate impact on youth of color, especially Black and Indigenous youth. The essay also explores the history of child removal from Indigenous families in US and Canadian history, highlighting the importance of that history when thinking about the use of the foster care system for Indigenous children today. Finally, I turn to foster care abolitionist movements headed by former fosterees to highlight an important direction that Critical Adoption Studies can pivot toward in order to center those most affected by foster care.