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Pop star Madonna's adoption of little David Banda from Malawi has raised troubling questions about international adoptions, cross-cultural care, and the power of celebrity -- just to name a few.

But even the simplest cross-cultural adoption can be fraught with a host of questions about identity, heritage and respect. As Marina Jiménez reported in Saturday's paper, here in Canada there's a dearth of Muslim foster families to take in Muslim children.

Dr. Karen Dubinsky, a history professor at Queen's University, is familiar with the complexities of international and cross-cultural adoptions. She was on-line Monday to take your questions on the topic.

You can still join the conversation by submitting a comment on the discussion. Your questions and Dr. Dubinsky's responses appear at the bottom of the page.

Dr. Dubinsky teaches in the History Department at Queen's University. She is the author of Improper Advances: Rape and Heterosexual Conflict in Ontario, 1880-1929 (1993) and The Second Greatest Disappointment: Honeymooners, Heterosexuality and the Tourist Industry at Niagara Falls (1999). She is currently writing a book about international and interracial adoption titled Babies Without Borders: Adoption and the Symbolic Child in Canada, Cuba and Guatemala.

Dr. Dubinsky has spent several years in various archives in Canada, researching the history of the placement of black and Aboriginal children with white parents. She has also done field research in Guatemala exploring international adoption from the perspective of "sending" countries.

This year she has launched a new course, "Symbolic Children: The Global Politics of Childhood," which explores a variety of current and historical controversies over children such as adoption, child labour, child soldiers, and children and sexuality.

Please join Dr. Dubinsky and other readers on-line at 1 p.m. Monday for a discussion about cross-cultural adoption.

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Rebecca Dube, globeandmail.com: Thank you very much for joining us today, Dr. Dubinsky. Madonna's adoption of an African boy certainly seems to have touched off a lot of controversy. Why do you think that is? Are there any lessons to be learned here for Canadian parents who have adopted children internationally (going through the proper, and sometimes lengthy, channels), or is this just a one-off story about the power of celebrity?

Karen Dubinsky: Historians like to read stories like this at least in part to observe or tease out cultural meaning. That wealthy people live differently and play by different set of rules isn't exactly newsworthy in and of itself. "This just in: Madonna is a rich white woman:" Not exactly front page material.

Incidentally, this story played out, in a remarkably similar way, in 1951, when Hollywood star Jane Russell (also someone with a sex goddess persona) adopted, in a very public way, a Irish infant, and the press exploded with indignant stories of rich Americans stealing/buying Irish children. Adoption was un- and under-regulated in many places in the world in the 1950s — Ireland and Korea for example — and this often leads to really bad practices.

But this is more than "just" about unregulated adoption; the power of this story comes in large part from the huge symbolic power children hold for us. And it also reveals, I think, that there are two conflicting — and I'd say equally unhelpful — ways of thinking about adoption in our era: rescue and kidnap. Both are simplistic and don't really get at the complexities.

Kirsty Matthews, Vancouver: I know about the 3 million AIDS orphans in my home country of South Africa whose childhood has been stolen from them. I have read about AIDS orphans in other parts of Africa being targeted by sex traffickers. I have also read about rebel groups like the LRA in Uganda that force children to join them. On the other hand, I do understand the hardship that a child must go through by being the only black face in a white, Western world, and I understand the concern with robbing these children of their native culture. If the choice is between a child growing up in stable, loving environment albeit with adoptive parents in a foreign land, or growing up in their native land that has been ravished by AIDS and doesn't have the basic infrastructure to care for these orphans, then is there really any choice at all? Is cultural sensity really even a credible issue when faced with the utterly desperate situation that these orphans are in? Or is it really just a thinly veiled excuse to avoid taking any responsibilty for a travesty that is occuring on the other side of the world?

Karen Dubinsky: I agree, but why are these the only choices? Why is the adoption of David (clearly Madonna is fond of iconic names!) so newsworthy and why all the outrage?

As I've been researching about adoption from the perspective of "sending" countries in Guatemala, I've learned a lot about the simple sadness of being the country with the highest per capita adoption rate in the world. Sometimes these concerns spiral into fears and rumours that Westerners are stealing kids for their organs, buying them, etc. In part this is about poor adoption regulations, and a barely functioning child welfare system. But obviously it's bigger than that -- in a world with such lopsided resources, just how metaphorical is it to think that rich white people are "consuming" the children of the poor?

If we get past the rescue scenario (adoption as wholly an act of kindness, charity, and salvation) and the kidnap scenario (adoption as colonialism and imperialism by another name) we could maybe focus on some of the issues you raise. Is adoption a cause or a symptom?

Phil Harrington, Canada: What is the lure of celebrities to go to some third world village and adopt a child, when there are plenty of children awaiting adoption in our own country, and why do they feel the need to inform the media of their intent to adopt? Is all a big charade, part of the Hollywood feel-good movement?

Karen Dubinsky: Far be it from me to analyze the particular motives of Madonna. That we are even having this conversation in the first place says something about the failure of political leadership in our world, particularly around AIDS and global poverty.

But your point about "Hollywood" is interesting, and I agree there are vast and blinding pleasures to child rescue, pleasures that really help us to overlook the circumstances which produce the need for adoption in the first place. And you don't have to be as famous as Madonna to feel the thrill of rescue; ask any adoptive parent how often they hear about what a "lucky" child they have. (Most adoptive parents I know hate this, and turn it around; THEY are the lucky ones. What Madonna would say to this one wonders...)

When we imagine adoption only as an act of "charity" or salvation, we conveniently erase things like the unequal economic and political relations between the "first" and "third" worlds, and the fact that adoption systems in many countries have been corrupted by colonialism and racism.

Bob Osser, Milton: Dr. Dubinsky: I do believe that Madonna did good things for the Malawi people by giving money for facilities for children who really need it, but on the other hand, she did circumvent the system by not going through the regular channels. I think the deeper question which is missed by all is will she and her husband make good parents, and will they be able to understand that they are no longer a one-culture family and give David the chance to learn about his heritage? Three years ago next month, my wife and I went over to China with 11 other couples as we adopted our Chinese daughter Jia (now almost 4 1/2) and we know how long the process is for adopting internationally; as well, we know that everyone cannot accept a multi-cultural or mixed raced family. We embrace the Chinese culture and tell Jia of her life story (as we know it), and as parents who were not able to have a child naturally, it was an amazing experience.

Karen Dubinsky: There is a strong trend away from the secrecy and shame which accompanied adoption in previous decades -- as though everyone could just press the erase button and live happily ever after. That was often an especially cruel system; particularly for the birth mothers. There's a great new collection of stories about birth mothers in the 1950's adoption system, The Girls Who Went Away, by Ann Fessler, which speaks eloquently to their experiences.

I encourage us to look beyond adoption itself, towards the conditions that create it. But within contemporary adoption practice, there are plenty of creative ways people have of opening their families, and their hearts, to this.

Domestically, "open adoption" is increasing -- keeping birth parents and children connected in some fashion. Internationally, some see cultural connections as a kind of a substitute for birth parent connections, though there are plenty of examples of North American adoptive families and maintaining relations with either birth families and/or foster families in the countries of origin.

Lillian Angel, Mississauga: I don't know if I would go so far to say that celebrities adopting babies is a fad. These children need to be raised for the next two decades, and I think these people (celebrities) have enough common sense (or help) to know this. For a child in poverty and the parents of this child, this is a dream. Your child will be given a grand life and supported. The child will grow up to be healthy and prosperous. Isn't that what we all want for our children? Why is it an issue?

Karen Dubinsky: I think we can start from the premise that all parents want good things for their children. And I think we can probably also agree that poverty doesn't disqualify you from good parenting. The question, to me, is why adoption -- which is really only one, relatively tiny, plank in the modern child welfare system that's been developed in the West in the past century -- serves as such a lightning rod, either for people's praise or their condemnation. In part, the answer to this comes from the history of how adoption has been practiced: It has in different eras and to different degrees, been cruel, judgmental, racist. It has also been a source of great help, to all parties (including birth mothers who have chosen it from a bunch of limited or bad choices).

Madonna's story, and the reaction to it, touches on so many issues and anxieties, about globalization and the current precarious state of the world. But its really just a kind of hyper-story of the history children and adoption.

Barbara Katz Rothman, sociologist in U.S. has written a very smart book about white people raising black children, (it's called Weaving a Family, and is in part autobiographical). She explains it this way: A man is walking along beside a stream and notices dead fish floating in the water. He starts pulling them out. They keep coming. He keeps pulling them out. He's so busy pulling out dead fish from the stream, he doesn't have time to look up the river, and find out what's hurting the fish. Adoption -- of whatever variety -- is the result of some very serious things going wrong up the river.

KM Rongotai, Canada: Karen, I thank you for taking the time to share information about international adoption. Having lived in the warm heart of Africa and also being an adoptive mother of an African child (through the proper, legal channels), I have found the opinions expressed on Madonna's situation both interesting and disturbing. In my understanding of international adoption law, no person can be monetarily rewarded for giving up their child. By adopting a child with a living parent Madonna, and David as he gets older, will face a huge ethical and moral challenge. How will David be able to reconcile his wealth with the incredible poverty in which his father is living?

Barbara Pascaluta, Toronto: I can't help but wonder, especially based on some of the points/opinions stated as so far, if it's a multitude of reasons. Like for example -- guilt? Is the rich white celebrity (i.e Madonna, Angelina Jolie) not only using their celebrity status to bring global awareness to a catastrophe (which is a good thing) or are they representing the deeper issue of the West's (namely America/England's) treatment of poorer, third world people? Like are they somehow subconsciously making amends for the fact for African people have been so downtrodden for so long? Are they feeling guilty for the crimes committed by their forefathers/nation is what I can't help but think sometimes. I feel like that sounds awful ... thoughts?

Karen Dubinsky: Both of these questions raise such big issues, and definitely confirm that this strange tale of celebrity is really a great lightning rod for some of the Big Questions of our world.

I'm teaching a course this year called Symbolic Children: The Global Politics of Childhood, in which I'm trying to explain to students how children are deeply connected to relations of political power. The child as the symbol of, in this instance, redemption and guilt (of the West/North) or as symbolic of global poverty; both are expressed so strongly in this story.

Rebecca Dube, globeandmail.com: That's all the time we have for today. Sorry we couldn't get to everyone's questions, but thanks to everyone who took the time to submit questions and participate in this conversation. Dr. Dubinsky, thanks very much for coming on-line to answer questions from globeandmail.com readers.