Adoption's Unfinished Business: A Roundtable Discussion

abstract: This roundtable discussion in which four participants take part allows adopted persons and those with experience of adoption to reflect on the enduring nature of adoption, the writing process that tries to capture it, and the challenges that in-country as well as intercountry adoptions still present. Guiding questions are: 1) How did you come to the process of writing? What does your genre of writing entail and what does it bring to the conversation about adoption? What made this writing happen and why now? 2) How would you define the "unfinished business" of adoption? Does it relate to the role that access to birth and adoption records plays? Is access a matter of institutional/legal challenges and/or psychological and even medical concerns? 3) What do you see as the main similarities and differences between in-country and intercountry adoptions? How do you see the two converge or drift apart in the near future? 4) What has changed recently in the adoption discussion? What remains to be debated and fought for?