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Publication Biopolitics of Adoption(2013-01-01) Briggs, LauraFrom the 1930s through the 1970s, first eugenics and then the Cold War made “overpopulation” a key word in defining the nature and cause of “Third World” poverty, as well as what the form of its solution—development—would be. Defining fertility as the problem simultaneously decentered blame—it was not colonialism or extractive world economic systems that cause poverty in the Global South—and provided a very specific cause and site of intervention: irresponsible, careless mothers and their excessive children. We know this story well; many feminist scholars and activists have made the argument that this discourse, imagined in relationship to the social science unit of the national population, was crucial to the elaboration of twentieth-century biopolitical regimes of post/neo/colonial governance.Publication La economía política de la adopción: La neoliberalización del bienestar infantil / Political economy of adoption: Neoliberalization of child welfare(2012-01-01) Briggs, LauraGuatemala, unlike most Latin American nations in the decades from 1990-2010, saw its rate of transnational adoptions of children rise. This article suggests that the usual explanation for this phenomenon –that thousands of children were displaced by the war, and that the country has no domestic “culture of adoption”– is inaccurate. On the contrary, it argues, transnational adoption from Guatemala began its ignominious history in kidnappings by militaries and paramilities during the 40-year civil war. Most of those children were adopted within the country (showing that Guatemalans do adopt, given the chance), but some were adopted in the U.S. and Europe. The victory by neoliberal forces in the war is mirrored in what happened to adoption: despite decades of efforts at reform, adoption became a very lucrative business for judges, social workers, lawyers, and others. The success of recent efforts to slow or halt transnational adoption from Guatemala will depend on whether those who profited from it find the indirect benefits of an improved “human rights record” to be worthwhile.Publication Reivindicar la cercanía entre los feminismos poscoloniales y decoloniales con base en Spivak y Rivera Cusicanqui(2019-01-01) Asher, KiranEn los últimos años, se han puesto los feminismos poscoloniales y decoloniales en contra unos de otros. En este artículo, argumento a favor de tratarlos como emparentados, yuxtaponiendo algunas de las ideas que he hallado en los escritos de Gayatri Spivak y Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui. Ninguna de ellas se presenta como feminista poscolonial o decolonial, aunque sus obras son citadas con frecuencia en referencia a estos campos. Ambas se enfrentan al espinoso tema de la representación de la subalternidad y la indigeneidad, no solo en la academia eurocéntrica, sino también entre académicos migrantes y diaspóricos y en las elites nacionales. Afirmo que son sus críticas persistentes a la representación lo que permite promover un diálogo entre la academia feminista poscolonial y decolonial. Esos diálogos conllevan la necesidad de pasar por encima de limitaciones lingüísticas, históricas, geográficas, políticas y teóricas para entablar alianzas anticoloniales. Palabras clave: poscolonial, decolonial, feminismos, Spivak, Rivera Cusicanqui. In the last few years, postcolonial and decolonial feminisms have been pitched against each other. In this commentary I make a case for treating them as kin. I do so by juxtaposing some of the ideas found in the writing of Gayatri Spivak and Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui. Neither claims to be a postcolonial or decolonial feminist, though their writings are regularly cited in reference to these fields. Both grapple with the thorny matter of representing subalternity and indigeneity, not only in Eurocentric scholarship, but also by migrant and diasporic academics and national elites. I contend that it is their persistent critiques of representation that can help foster a dialogue between postcolonial and decolonial feminist scholarship. Such dialogues entail reaching across linguistic, historical, geographical, political, and theoretical boundaries to establish anti-colonial alliances.Publication A Retrospective Look at the Winding Paths to Legalizing Afro-Colombian Rights in Law 70 of 1993(2016-01-01) Asher, KiranAugust 2013 marked twenty years since the passing of Law 70, which legally recognizes the ethnic, territorial, and socioeconomic rights of black communities in Colombia. In the past two decades its implementation has been mixed at best, and the actual political and economic status of most Afro-Colombians remains grim. Yet this flawed law remains an important icon and political instrument of Afro-Colombian struggles. A retrospective look at the processes and peoples that led up to Law 70 may be useful in the context of ongoing Afro-Latin(o) struggles to obtain real and sustained cultural, political, and economic rights.Publication Fieldwork(2019-01-01) Asher, Kiran