Award Date

1-1-2003

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Sociology

First Committee Member

Kathryn Hausbeck

Number of Pages

160

Abstract

This thesis explores the identity construction and subject positions of gay male foster and adoptive parents. Using late twentieth and early twenty-first century cultural texts, I apply a Foucaultian perspective to analyze how controversies over gay adoptions articulate shifts in contemporary American discourses of homosexuality and the family. Identities available to homosexuals have shifted since the nineteenth century; this thesis looks at the emergence of a new contested identity for homosexuals as adoptive parents at the turn of the twenty-first century by employing Foucaultian methodological techniques of archaeology. This work contributes to the sociological literature on gender, law, and the postmodern family, and begins to move theoretical understandings beyond the current state of queer theory and poststructural discourse on identity.

Keywords

Adoption; Emerging; Gay; Identities; Subjects

Controlled Subject

Social psychology; Law; Social sciences--Research

File Format

pdf

File Size

8212.48 KB

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

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