Description: Families We Need is an ethnography of the temporary, yet transformative relationships between disenfranchised, older foster mothers and disabled, orphaned foster children in China, and the power of these seemingly marginal relationships to confront state power, disrupt intercountry adoption, and challenge our assumptions about the limits of foster kinship.
Review Quotes: "Raffety's work provides a rare and precious view on foster care and other kinship practices in mountainous Southwest China, showing us their deep entanglements with forces of urbanization and globalization. It reveals how life-transforming care could emerge where the most vulnerable individuals encounter each other, quietly resisting the deeply-seated biases of ableism, classism, and even imperialism. The book exemplifies the most empathic and humanizing type of ethnography."--Zhiying Ma "assistant professor at The University of Chicago"