Children and the Politics of Cultural Belonging. By Alice Hearst. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2012. 211 pp. $90.00 cloth.

Children and the Politics of Cultural Belonging. By Alice Hearst. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2012. 211 pp. $90.00 cloth.In the arena of adoption, consideration of "the best interest of the child" has arguably become central when facilitating placement of children. One key consideration of "the best interest of the child" is the cultural environment in which they will grow up. Alice Hearst challenges us to rethink perceptions of "the best interest of the child" and how they have been incorporated into adoption prac- tices. Although much of the analyses in the book focus upon laws and legal cases, the book should draw a wider audience of scholars who study the range of actors involved in adoption, such as adop- tion professionals, biological and adoptive parents, and adult adoptees.Hearst initially identifies some problem areas in current think- ing on cultural belonging of children with a discussion of theories of multiculturalism, politics of community and communal politics in particular. Subsequently, the study explores these problem areas by examining laws and legal cases in three types of adoption: domestic transracial adoption of non-American Indian children (Chapter 3), domestic adoption of American Indian children (Chapter 4), and transnational adoption (Chapter 5). The book's strength lies in how Hearst draws out the multiple dimensions of cultural belonging. The author interrogates the meanings of cul- tural belonging as it is debated and contested in the legal arena. A significant focus of the study is on the influence of adoption place- ment on communities, particularly marginalized ones.To offer a theoretical contribution, Hearst draws from what Stephen Cornell and Douglas Hartmann (1998: 89) call "con- structed primordiality" to frame the effects of displacement on adopted and foster care children from a community. Thus, adop- tive families endeavor to construct a firm identity for adopted children through blood ties or other types of commonalities in their "claim[ing] of [the] child as one of their own, regardless of whether the child has spent significant amount of time with the group" (49). From the child's perspective, the author argues that going through a process of searching for identity by seeking biological and ethnic origins cannot be dismissed. Moreover, the author critiques theo- ries of multiculturalism, which argue that disenfranchised groups should be given autonomy to choose their own identity. Hearst responds that these theories lack applicability to adoptees' experi- ences and argues that most children typically do not have power to make choices as to which community or family they can belong.By placing children's cultural belongingness as a contested issue in the context of three adoption types that are governed by different laws, Hearst shows how they all produce uneven responses from communities whose culturally and racially margin- alized identities are at stake. The study traces disputes around several adoption laws. For example, Hearst discusses how racial- matching versus transracial adoption practices occurred after enactment of the Multiethnic Placement Act of 1994 and the Inter- ethnic Placement Provisions of 1996 (MEPA-IEP). …