Paper short abstract:

This study examines Romanian orphans and their agency. Not like the image of childhood in the international child protection, the orphans work as actor not recipient. Investigating the Romanian case, this study insists that anthropology can be a hub between the international model and indigeneity.

Paper long abstract:

This paper discusses about how anthropological insights into orphans have the possibility to cooperate with the child protection through examining Romanian orphans and the child protection system.

The international child protection has made the Western conceptualisation of childhood the universal model. In the model, children are described as a recipient of being taken care of, raised, and heard. As a result, children are considered as a participant of the civil society but with the conditional membership.

In Romania, child protection has been reformed in accordance with the international model of childhood, therefore, the Romanian government has promoted deinstitutionalisation process and foster care in contrast to the institutionalisation by the former communist government. With their effort, approximately seventy percent of the Romanian live in the familial environment such as foster care.

My research in Romania from 2019 to 2021 revealed that the orphans were actually not only the recipients of care and of the familial environment but also active actors in “family” formation with the adults who surrounded them. However, at the same time, it is inevitable to point out that orphans’ agency to construct “family” sometimes destruct their relationship with the others.

The agency of children, however, does not emerge in individualistic ways, rather, it is demonstrated with Romanian indigenous concepts of children and family. Although the collective agency sometimes does not match the universal model, this study insists that the anthropological insights can contribute to further promotion of orphans’ well-being through connecting the indigenous concept to the international context.