Defining the Limits of Acceptable Parenthood: Reproductive Governance in Brazil

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.