Dissertation Research: Fostering Family in Rural and Urban Ayacucho

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0109060Mannheim / Leinaweaver Many societies in the world have flexible customs of child-rearing involving adoption and fosterage to match children to adults in specific situations. This dissertation research by a cultural anthropology student will investigate the role of adoption and fosterage in rural and urban highland Peru. Internal migrants from rural to urban areas who seek education, employment, or safety have used flexible child rearing methods for years. The Peruvian government has recently begun a system of regulating and bureaucratizing domestic and international adoptions which transformed the ability of urban Andeans to develop their kinship networks through fosterage. Over a period of 12 months of research with Quechua speakers in the Ayacucho region, the student will study how Andeans respond to the content of state discourse and policy about kinship ideologies. Through participant observation, oral history and semi-structured interviews as well as a survey of 400 residents of the rural community studied, she will examine the relationship between the content of official, state discourse about proper forms of family-construction and the understandings and practices of fosterage among rural community dwellers and internal migrants to the city of Ayacucho. The general issue to be studied is whether rural models of kinship are amenable to change when they are confronted with state discourse, or whether models of kinship are so deeply embedded in Andean life that they resist changes encouraged by state discourse. This project will produce valuable new knowledge for those interested in issues surrounding both domestic and international adoption, will advance our familiarity with this important region of the world, and will contribute to the training of a young social scientist.