ABSTRACT
This chapter examines what might be called, but with considerable caution, the "globalization" of this historically and culturally specific concept in the policies and practices of inter-country adoption, and the accompanying effort to define the flow of children from south to north as "not" a market and "not" a traffic in children. The globalization of a sentimentalized western concept of childhood is also "localized" in terms of hierarchies of race and gender that affect how children are perceived and categorized in sending as well as in receiving countries. Children are a'supremely important national asset' and the future well-being of the nation depends on how its children grow and develop. Indeed, a key theme in my conversations with all of these adoptive parents today is their commitment to inter-country adoption as pivotal in realizing Sweden's potential as a model nation in an increasingly global world.
