North America's Amish-Mennonites Adopt Abroad: The Ideologies and Institutional Conditions that Cracked the Homogeneity of an Ethnic Religion.

Abstract

Under what social conditions would ethnic sectarians in developed countries engage in inter-country adoption, grafting ethnically-racially diverse children into their homogenous contexts? In this article, we present a case study of Amish-Mennonite adoption-oriented children's homes in underdeveloped countries. As the ethnic-sectarian, family-oriented, evangelical Amish-Mennonites meet little success proselytizing adults, adoption-oriented children's home allowed adoptive parents to demonstrate their commitment to mission while maintaining sectarian-style control over a child's socialization. Ultimately, the children's homes were short-lived, coming and going based on larger geo-political dynamics, signaling that this unusual international adoption project is internally motivated but enabled and constrained by larger institutional contexts. Though the actual percent of inter-country adoptees to Amish-Mennonite homes is small, this case demonstrates that the right combination of values and broader political dynamics create conditions facilitating migration of children from lesser developed countries into wealthy contexts, a process cracking - even if not fully opening - Amish-Mennonite ethnic/racial homogeneity.