Defining the Limits of Acceptable Parenthood: Reproductive Governance in Brazil

ABSTRACT

Drawing on sources relating to the Brazilian scenario – from ethnographic research in lower-income neighorhoods to the analysis of official documents and public debates – we build on cases of forced child removals to explore the intersectional dynamics of class, race, and gender that underlie institutionalized practices of discrimination against poverty-stricken families. After first addressing the influence of recent global trends in child-protection policy, we observe how adoption procedures in Brazil have been increasingly facilitated by the resignification of rights and corresponding changes in the country’s legal infrastructures. Next, asking what sort of authoritative knowledge is invoked to define a child’s best interests, we reflect on the role played by biomedicine in appraising the limits of acceptable parenthood. Guided by the notion of stratified reproduction, our investigation of these political, scientific, and moral technologies suggests plausible connections between policies that condition the demand for and the supply of adoptable children.

RESUMO

Apoiando-nos em materiais do cenário brasileiro – de pesquisas etnográficas em bairros de baixa renda até a análise de documentos oficiais e debates públicos – partimos da retirada compulsória de recém-nascidos para explorar dinâmicas interseccionais de classe, raça e gênero que subjazem práticas institucionazadas de discriminação contra famílias pobres. Depois de considerar a influência de tendências globais de políticas de proteção à infância, observamos como a adoção no Brasil tem sido facilitada pela ressignificação de direitos e por cambios correspondentes nas infraestruturas legais. Perguntando, então, que tipo de conhecimento autoritativo é invocado para definir o melhor interesse da criança, refletimos sobre o papel desempenhado pela biomedina na avaliação dos limites de m/paternidades aceitáveis. Guiada pela noção de reprodução estratificada, nossa investigação dessas tecnologias políticas, científicas e morais sugere conexões plausíveis entre as políticas que condicionam a demanda por, e a oferta de, crianças disponíveis para adoção.

KEYWORDS:

• Brazil
• domestic adoption
• forced child removal
• reproductive governance
• stratified reproduction
• “at-risk” parenthood

PALAVRAS CHAVE:

• Adoção doméstica
• Brasil
• governança reprodutiva
• parentalidade de risco
• reprodução estratificada
• retirada compulsória de crianças

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. See Fonseca and Fleischer (2021) and Junge et al. (2021) for more on the political climate during the pandemic years of far-right President Bolsonaro (2019–2022).

2. Author 1 has been carrying out ethnographic field work since the 1980s in working-class neighborhoods of Porto Alegre (Fonseca 2011); author 2, also with lengthy ethnographic research in urban settlements, is at the moment head of a community-based NGO. Both have an ongoing engagement in meetings, events, and interviews with child protection professionals, particularly in the state of Rio Grande do Sul.

3. See Cardarello (2012) for a notable exception.

4. https://pip.worldbank.org/country-profiles/BRA, numbers for the year 2000.

5. See, for example, https://criciuma08pj.blogspot.com/2014/04/lei-da-adocao-ainda-nao-acabou-com.html (2013).

6. https://istoe.com.br/organizadores-da-adocao-na-passarela-devem-ser-investigados-dizem-advogados/; http://www.tjrj.jus.br/noticias/noticia/-/visualizar-conteudo/5111210/5527464.

7. https://paineisanalytics.cnj.jus.br/single/?appid=ccd72056–8999–4434-b913-f74b5b5b31a2&sheet=4f1d9435-00b1-4c8c-beb7-8ed9dba4e45a&opt=currsel&select=clearall (consulted online August 15, 2023).

8. See the Nuffield Report (Broadhurst 2018) for similar trends in Great Britain.

9. Gomes and Coord (2017), list legal and ethical violations similar to those seen in Marcelo and Sandra´s case: babies withdrawn with no written justification; the absence or delay in notifying parents of the child´s whereabouts; placement of the child in shelters far distant from the family´s home; restriction or even denial of the parents´ rights to visit; breach of secrecy concerning information divulged during therapeutic sessions; and the opening of adoption procedures after only a summary search for a foster home within the child´s extended family, etc … (See Reyes-Kipp (2015) for similar practices in another Latin American setting.) .

10. Public hearing held by the Comissão de Cidadania e Direitos Humanos (Rio Grande do Sul, House of Representatives) – May 23, 2018, available on: http://proweb.procergs.com.br/temp/88_23052018100000_04092023194623_ata.pdf?rnd = 0.2722258290127

11. Public hearing held by the Defensoria Pública do Estado de Santa Catarina – Blumenau: “Vulnerabilidade Social x Destituição do Poder Familiar.” August 31, 2022.

12. BRASIL. Superior Tribunal de Justiça. Habeas Corpus nº 776461 - SC. Court justice Marco Aurélio Bellizze. Brasília, November 29, 2022. Available on: <https://www.stj.jus.br/>.

13. https://www.jusbrasil.com.br/diarios/1122438021/dou-secao-1-20-04-2021-pg-9

14. See the 2023 event promoting foster families in which the speaker exhibits a slide of “recent evidence” (drawn from the website of a clinic for child therapy in the USA) to criticize group homes. The image is, in fact, a colorful Pet-scan that appeared in a 1997 issue of Newsweek – an image that was criticized and abandoned as meaningless by its own author two years later (Bruer 1999).

15. https://www.camara.leg.br/internet/sitaqweb/textoHTML.asp?etapa = 11&nuSessao = 0312/13&nuQuarto = 0&nuOrador = 0&nuInsercao = 0&dtHorarioQuarto = 09:00&sgFaseSessao=&Data = 16/4/2013&txApelido=SEGURIDADE%20SOCIAL%20E%20FAM%C3%8DLIA&txFaseSessao=Semin%C3%A1rio&txTipoSessao=&dtHoraQuarto = 09:00&txEtapa=.

16. First steps: Catch them while they´re young. Available at : http://www.pim.saude.rs.gov.br/site/first-steps-bbc-world-news/ The video is narrated in English with Portuguese subtitles.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the CNPQ (Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa Científica e Tecnológica), under grant number [40/2022] - Linha 3B - Políticas públicas para o desenvolvimento humano e social (Public policies for human and social development).

Notes on contributors

Claudia Fonseca

Claudia Fonseca is a full professor of Anthropology at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil). Her research interests include medical anthropology, government technologies, feminist studies, and the anthropology of science and technology. In addition to long-term involvement in the field of kinship, gender, adoption, and child protection, she has conducted recent research on leprosy, examining issues of health, care, patient activism, stigma, and disability. She is currently developing research on reproductive governance, looking at the use of scientific languages in the promotion of particular political and moral agendas.

Lucia Scalco

Lucia Scalco holds a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, with research focused on working-class communities in urban areas, digital inclusion, and new forms of information and knowledge appropriation in contemporary society, particularly among youth. Blending academic research with community action, she simultaneously heads the Coletivo Autônomo do Morro da Cruz, an NGO that promotes innovative social development projects, and continues to do research, publishing in journals such as Hau – Journal of Ethnographic Theory, Social Anthropology, and International Review of Social Research.