Informal parenting networks in the adoptive field

© 2019, Asociacion de Antropologos Iberoamericanos en Red. All rights reserved. The phenomenon of international adoptions has been widely studied in the last 15 years from various disciplines, including Social and Cultural Anthropology. However, some areas have not yet been fully considered in our discipline, such as the role of personal support networks in adoptive parenting. In order to palliate this shortcoming, this article will address the main conclusions of a research project aimed at analysing care tasks and parenting roles, and explore the extension of these roles within the parenting networks configured around internationally adopted children in processes not considered of high risk because of physical or psychological reasons, nor due to other sociocultural vulnerability indicators. To this end, I will examine the personal support networks of fifty parents, considering in particular the key sectors that they think of utmost importance for the daily upbringing of their adopted children. By so doing, I intend to identify the core types of support needed, as well as the main agents involved in care tasks (regardless of their age, profession, social connection or genealogical proximity with the adoptive families), the reasons for their relevance, and the essential characteristics of the resulting networks.