Barbara Yngvesson is our latest author to take Marshal Zeringue’s “Page 99 Test.” On his blog of the same name Zeringue asks authors to flip to page 99 of their books, summarize it, and then give a brief explanation of how it relates to the rest of the work. The latest post features Yngvesson discussing her book Belonging in an Adopted World: Race, Identity, and Transnational Adoption.
Yngvesson’s post begins:

Page 99 of Belonging in an Adopted World focuses on a central theme of the book: the ways that transnational adoption contributes to projects of nation-building by countries that “send” and “receive” children in adoption. Drawing on anthropologist Arturo Escobar’s (1995) understanding of development discourse as a “secular theory of salvation,” the first paragraph argues that narratives of rescue underpinning policies of transnational adoption can be mapped onto development theories of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s that positioned the developing world as “a child in need of guidance.”

Click over to the Page 99 Test to continue reading or find out more about the book.