Galindabaeva V.V. Transformaciya praktiki otkrytogo usynovleniya v kontekste sel'sko-gorodskoi migracii (sluchai postsovetskoi Buryatii) [Transformation of the open adoption practice in the context of rural-urban migration (case of post-Soviet Buryatiya)]. Peterburgskaya sociologiya segodnya [Petersburg sociology today], 2018, Issue 10, pp. 149-168.

Abstract

The article deals with the transformation of the practice of open adoption in post-Soviet Buryatiya. The transfer of the child or the exchange of children within the extended family is considered by the author of the article as another form of childcare that allows to transfer the burden of care from one generation to another or to redistribute it in-between representatives of the same generation. This type of intergenerational care is rarely become the subject of research, since the open adoption of children of relatives is the norm in a limited number of societies. The study was conducted within the framework of qualitative methodology. The method of the leitmotif interview was used to collect empirical material (23 interviews); the method of thematic coding and the method of discourse analysis were used for the analysis of documents. The technique of analyzing the categorization of interaction was used in the analysis of interview transcripts. An analysis of the public discourse of the tradition of open adoption shows that this custom is positively interpreted. The custom of open adoption becomes in demand as a legitimate way to level out the lack of care in the family of a rural migrant. If earlier the need for adoption was legitimized by shamanistic faith in the life of ancestral spirits on the earth, today Buddhism justifies parents who give their children away for adoption with the concept of buin. The custom of open adoption is encouraged at the level of public discourse, but stigmatized in private area. A change in the attitude towards this custom in the private sphere shows that the extended mothering that was adopted in the families of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, when women of one large family participated in the childcare, is replaced by the ideology of intensive mothering