Karen Smith Rotabi
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 356039 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Karen Smith Rotabi |
| NOMBRES | Karen Smith |
| APELLIDO | Rotabi |
| FIRMA | ROTABI K S |
| AFILIACIONES | California State University, Monterey Bay |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4685-6667 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 35 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 116 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 35 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2006 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2025 |
| ÍNDICE H | 7 |
So Goes China
Seeking Asylum in the United States
The Northern Triangle countries, including El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, are sources of a significant number of asylum seekers in the United States today. This article examines the underlying societal dynamics in these countries and considers the typical profile of transgender immigrant women seeking asylum in the U.S. on the legal grounds of having faced gender-based violence in their countries of origin. It analyzes the relevant interna…
During the chaos of war
The adoption of Ukrainian children, by US citizens, is examined as the Ukrainian government ceases adoptions of children during the chaos of war. Intercountry adoption dynamics are presented with data from 2021, prior to the conflict in 2022. Then, the situation regarding child rights and the official Ukrainian government position are considered. Implications for guardianship and foster care of unaccompanied refugee minors are presented along wit…
Social Work in a Post- Dobbs World
This article takes as its departure a critique of the ‘adoption fallacy’ underlying the US Supreme Court decision Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization to argue that the Dobbs decision incentivizes a reconsideration of social work practice as a site for advancing reproductive justice. To do this, however, social work must strive to decolonize the profession by critically reflecting on its role in reproductive policy and politics, particula…
The National Adoption System and Child Protection in Guatemala
This article discusses the evolution of adoption policy and practices in Guatemala from the 1990s to 2021. The authors synthesized own research and analyzed adoption scholarship and reports and organized that history in three distinct periods: (1) conflict years (1966–1996) when mostly Guatemalan military families and associates adopted stolen children, (2) post-conflict and millennium adoption years (1997-2007) when the commercialization of chil…
Social Work Codes of Ethics in the Arab Countries of Western Asia
This study compares social work codes of ethics in the Arab countries of Western Asia (Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Lebanon, Bahrain, Yemen, Palestine, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Syria), to the International Federation of Social Workers Global Statement of Ethical Principles (2018). As of 2020—with Qatar’s recent addition of an MSW programme—there are over two dozen bachelor and/or master’s degree programmes in social work in th…
Developing the Child Protection Workforce
Due to decades of conflict and instability, mechanisms for child protection in Somalia are limited. One key activity of the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund’s (UNICEF) strategy to address structural gaps in capacity to implement an effective child protection system is to establish a network of social work schools throughout Somalia. To this end, UNICEF brought together experts in social work curriculum development in Islamic…
Intercountry adoption swimming against the tide
Intercountry adoption (ICA) is a contested practice represented by competing discourses of humanitarianism, exploitation, poverty and wealth. Multiple factors have contributed to decreasing numbers of adoption globally including documented incidents of fraud which have accumulated over the last two decades. There is little recompense for families subjected to the fraudulent removal of their children, the children, and adoptive parents who are als…
Developments in U.S. Intercountry Adoption Policy since Its Peak in 2004
This paper examines the implications of recent developments in U.S. intercountry adoption (ICA) policy for vulnerable children. We review policy and practices from 2004-2018, including (1) the 2008 implementation of the Hague Convention and (2) the 2017 changes in Hague accrediting entities for adoption agencies. By analyzing the ICA contexts of the top five States of origin, we argue the decline in ICA is from factors within States of origin rat…
The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on intercountry adoption and international commercial surrogacy
The COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented economic, health and social impacts as it has swept the globe. Intercountry adoption and international surrogacy are practices immediately affected, furthering vulnerabilities of children and vulnerable adults. This short report calls attention to heightened risks, raises awareness for practitioners in these fields and asserts the need for caution
Forced Child–Family Separations in the Southwestern U.S. Border Under the “Zero-Tolerance” Policy
Forced Child-Family Separations in the Southwestern US Border Under the “Zero-Tolerance” Policy
Identifying and Addressing Risk in the Implementation of Alternative Care Policies in Cambodia
Building an Effective Child Protection System in India
Social work education in the Arabian Gulf
Religion is an integral part of life in Islamic countries in the Arabian Gulf nations of Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and thus it informs social work education, practice, and policies. With the expansion of social work education around the world—both through Western universities opening international campuses and local universities developing social work programs—any Western faculty is part of developing…
Altruistic Exploitation
Despite the abundant scientific evidence demonstrating the benefits of family-based care for children and the damages brought on by institution-based care, the social work profession continues to endorse and engage in practices that promote the latter. This is particularly true through orphan tourism and orphan volunteerism—short- and longer-term forms of providing aid to residential facilities caring for children. Using educational tours to orph…
Rescue, red tape, child abduction, illicit adoptions, and discourse
Evidence of child abduction for intercountry adoption challenges our notions of altruism. The history of illicit adoptions and child abduction is presented with specific emphasis on Guatemala as a case example. Drawing on data produced in an ethnographic research, the analysis searches to elucidate how those involved in intercountry adoption in Spain (mainly adoptive and prospective adoptive parents) deal with signs of fraud and corruption. The r…
The Care of Orphaned and Vulnerable Children in Islam
Regulating Commercial Global Surrogacy
Global commercial surrogacy and international adoption
Over the decades, there have been numerous trends in the formation of family for those experiencing infertility. Adoption – initially domestic but now mostly international – has long been a prevailing method, with a dual outcome of also finding homes for parentless children. Those would-be parents with a stronger desire for genetic relatedness have turned to assisted reproductive technologies for the creation of their families. In the 21st centur…
Contextual Adaptation of Family Group Conferencing Model
Guatemala has faced a disproportionate number of children placed outside their families through unethical intercountry adoptions or into large residential settings, jeopardising child and family rights. In response, an international team conducted a pilot training in Guatemala on family group conferencing (FGC) as a means of maintaining children in their homes or with their kin. The training participants were child welfare professionals from gove…
International private law to regulate commercial global surrogacy practices
International private law is currently being considered to regulate commercial global surrogacy. This brief note discusses the state of social work literature in addition to the International Federation of Social Workers’ position statement, identifying a lack of empirical grounding in social work research. Global surrogacy is framed against previous social work research and policy development related to intercountry adoption and international pr…
Voice and Community in the Corporate Academy
This article is the story of the simultaneous feminization and corporatization of universities, themes that emerged in a test of a collective biography, a qualitative research method. Organizers brought together 12 macro social work academic women across generations and, through sampling, attempted to avoid the intergenerational splitting that seems to be leaving junior faculty to be socialized by administrators while simultaneously isolating sen…
Social Justice and Intercountry Adoptions
Using social justice as the conceptual foundation, the authors present the structural barriers to socially just intercountry adoptions (ICAs) that can exploit and oppress vulnerable children and families participating in ICAs. They argue that such practices threaten the integrity of social work practice in that arena and the survival of ICA as a placement option. Government structures, disparity of power between countries and families on both sid…
The Decline in Intercountry Adoptions and New Practices of Global Surrogacy
Intercountry adoption (ICA) has declined significantly since 2004. Now with fewer options for family building with a healthy child or infant via ICA, global surrogacy appears to be replacing the practice in some cases. This article presents a brief history of ICA and ethical dilemmas and human rights concerns and explores global surrogacy, starting with surrogacy practices in India. It then considers the new and emerging practice of surrogacy in …
Family group conferencing as a culturally adaptable intervention
Intercountry adoptions prevent institutionalization but may erode children’s rights to their families and cultural heritage. Family group conferencing offers a culturally adaptable intervention that looks for domestic solutions before turning to out-of-country placements. Guatemalan social work education offers a hospitable environment in which to promote its extension to adoptions
Rescue, red tape, child abduction, illicit adoptions, and discourse
Evidence of child abduction for intercountry adoption challenges our notions of altruism. The history of illicit adoptions and child abduction is presented with specific emphasis on Guatemala as a case example. Drawing on data produced in an ethnographic research, the analysis searches to elucidate how those involved in intercountry adoption in Spain (mainly adoptive and prospective adoptive parents) deal with signs of fraud and corruption. The r…
Social Justice and Intercountry Adoptions
Using social justice as the conceptual foundation, the authors present the structural barriers to socially just intercountry adoptions (ICAs) that can exploit and oppress vulnerable children and families participating in ICAs. They argue that such practices threaten the integrity of social work practice in that arena and the survival of ICA as a placement option. Government structures, disparity of power between countries and families on both sid…
The Decline in Intercountry Adoptions and New Practices of Global Surrogacy
Intercountry adoption (ICA) has declined significantly since 2004. Now with fewer options for family building with a healthy child or infant via ICA, global surrogacy appears to be replacing the practice in some cases. This article presents a brief history of ICA and ethical dilemmas and human rights concerns and explores global surrogacy, starting with surrogacy practices in India. It then considers the new and emerging practice of surrogacy in …
Forced Child-Family Separations in the Southwestern US Border Under the “Zero-Tolerance” Policy
Identifying and Addressing Risk in the Implementation of Alternative Care Policies in Cambodia
Global commercial surrogacy and international adoption
Over the decades, there have been numerous trends in the formation of family for those experiencing infertility. Adoption – initially domestic but now mostly international – has long been a prevailing method, with a dual outcome of also finding homes for parentless children. Those would-be parents with a stronger desire for genetic relatedness have turned to assisted reproductive technologies for the creation of their families. In the 21st centur…
Forced Child–Family Separations in the Southwestern U.S. Border Under the “Zero-Tolerance” Policy
The Care of Orphaned and Vulnerable Children in Islam
The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on intercountry adoption and international commercial surrogacy
The COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented economic, health and social impacts as it has swept the globe. Intercountry adoption and international surrogacy are practices immediately affected, furthering vulnerabilities of children and vulnerable adults. This short report calls attention to heightened risks, raises awareness for practitioners in these fields and asserts the need for caution
Building an Effective Child Protection System in India
Regulating Commercial Global Surrogacy
Child adoption and war
The illegal removal of children from biological family life during conflict has a longstanding history. Briefly overviewed are the Vietnam Babylift and a more recent child abduction attempt in Chad. Then, turning to the history of child abduction and adoption history in Latin America, the conflicts of El Salvador and Argentina are presented and ‘living disappeared’ children – those who disappear into adoption networks during war – are discussed. …
Voice and Community in the Corporate Academy
This article is the story of the simultaneous feminization and corporatization of universities, themes that emerged in a test of a collective biography, a qualitative research method. Organizers brought together 12 macro social work academic women across generations and, through sampling, attempted to avoid the intergenerational splitting that seems to be leaving junior faculty to be socialized by administrators while simultaneously isolating sen…
Enhancing Global Understanding with Study Abroad
Expanding opportunities for short-term overseas study require social work educators to consider ethical implications of these courses. Maximizing global understanding requires skillful facilitation, culturally respectful engagement, and learning activities consistent with ethical codes. Drawing on 10 years of experience leading study abroad trips the authors outline principles for instruction grounded in values of social justice, dignity and wort…
Ethical Guidelines for Study Abroad
Study abroad has become a common experience for American social work students. However, there is little guidance for facilitation of such courses in an international context. As a result, there is a risk that students and facilitators can perpetuate the privileged and 'Ugly American' image. Providing guidance for prevention of such mistakes, the authors present a conceptual model for international learning, based on an ethical framework founded o…
Social Work in a Post- Dobbs World
This article takes as its departure a critique of the ‘adoption fallacy’ underlying the US Supreme Court decision Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization to argue that the Dobbs decision incentivizes a reconsideration of social work practice as a site for advancing reproductive justice. To do this, however, social work must strive to decolonize the profession by critically reflecting on its role in reproductive policy and politics, particula…
The National Adoption System and Child Protection in Guatemala
This article discusses the evolution of adoption policy and practices in Guatemala from the 1990s to 2021. The authors synthesized own research and analyzed adoption scholarship and reports and organized that history in three distinct periods: (1) conflict years (1966–1996) when mostly Guatemalan military families and associates adopted stolen children, (2) post-conflict and millennium adoption years (1997-2007) when the commercialization of chil…
Intercountry adoption swimming against the tide
Intercountry adoption (ICA) is a contested practice represented by competing discourses of humanitarianism, exploitation, poverty and wealth. Multiple factors have contributed to decreasing numbers of adoption globally including documented incidents of fraud which have accumulated over the last two decades. There is little recompense for families subjected to the fraudulent removal of their children, the children, and adoptive parents who are als…
Developments in U.S. Intercountry Adoption Policy since Its Peak in 2004
This paper examines the implications of recent developments in U.S. intercountry adoption (ICA) policy for vulnerable children. We review policy and practices from 2004-2018, including (1) the 2008 implementation of the Hague Convention and (2) the 2017 changes in Hague accrediting entities for adoption agencies. By analyzing the ICA contexts of the top five States of origin, we argue the decline in ICA is from factors within States of origin rat…
Altruistic Exploitation
Despite the abundant scientific evidence demonstrating the benefits of family-based care for children and the damages brought on by institution-based care, the social work profession continues to endorse and engage in practices that promote the latter. This is particularly true through orphan tourism and orphan volunteerism—short- and longer-term forms of providing aid to residential facilities caring for children. Using educational tours to orph…
Contextual Adaptation of Family Group Conferencing Model
Guatemala has faced a disproportionate number of children placed outside their families through unethical intercountry adoptions or into large residential settings, jeopardising child and family rights. In response, an international team conducted a pilot training in Guatemala on family group conferencing (FGC) as a means of maintaining children in their homes or with their kin. The training participants were child welfare professionals from gove…
Violence Against Women and Asylum Seeking
This paper, based on broader discussions surrounding gender violence and immigration in the U.S., provides critical information on the historical context of extreme violence against women and femicide plaguing Central American societies today. Drawing on experiences of precedent setting cases of Guatemalan women, the authors offer suggestions for culturally specific treatment of and support for women who seek asylum in the U.S. out of justified f…
Ecological Theory Origin from Natural to Social Science of Vice Versa? A Brief Conceptual History for Social Work
The origin of holistic social work and ecological theory was investigated. Emphasis was placed on Howard W. Odum, founding dean of the University of North Carolina School of Public Welfare, and subsequent scholarship by his sons, collaborators on the first American ecology text. Eugene and Howard Thomas Odum, internationally recognized ecological scholars, identified holism as a universal concept originating in social sciences, crediting their fa…
International private law to regulate commercial global surrogacy practices
International private law is currently being considered to regulate commercial global surrogacy. This brief note discusses the state of social work literature in addition to the International Federation of Social Workers’ position statement, identifying a lack of empirical grounding in social work research. Global surrogacy is framed against previous social work research and policy development related to intercountry adoption and international pr…
Ethical Guidelines for Study Abroad
Study abroad has become a common experience for American social work students. However, there is little guidance for facilitation of such courses in an international context. As a result, there is a risk that students and facilitators can perpetuate the privileged and 'Ugly American' image. Providing guidance for prevention of such mistakes, the authors present a conceptual model for international learning, based on an ethical framework founded o…
Enhancing Global Understanding with Study Abroad
Expanding opportunities for short-term overseas study require social work educators to consider ethical implications of these courses. Maximizing global understanding requires skillful facilitation, culturally respectful engagement, and learning activities consistent with ethical codes. Drawing on 10 years of experience leading study abroad trips the authors outline principles for instruction grounded in values of social justice, dignity and wort…
Integrating Globalization into the Social Work Curriculum
The reality that social work is a global profession is explored. Authors encourage a broadening of social work education, moving beyond the traditional conception of"internationalized"to a "globalized" social work curriculum. Practical teaching strategies for a globalized perspective are presented with selected key concepts specifically applied to social policy, community practice, human behavior in the social environment, and sustainable develop…
Ecological Theory Origin from Natural to Social Science of Vice Versa? A Brief Conceptual History for Social Work
The origin of holistic social work and ecological theory was investigated. Emphasis was placed on Howard W. Odum, founding dean of the University of North Carolina School of Public Welfare, and subsequent scholarship by his sons, collaborators on the first American ecology text. Eugene and Howard Thomas Odum, internationally recognized ecological scholars, identified holism as a universal concept originating in social sciences, crediting their fa…
In an Era of Reform
Intercountry adoption (ICA) is a relatively common practice. Since its contemporary conception during the Second World War, approximately one million children have been adopted internationally. Controversy surrounding ICA includes ideas about human rights and notions of child rescue in the context of major reform to prevent child sales and abduction under the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption. Social work, as a discipline, is a central pl…
Intercountry adoption
The Decline in Intercountry Adoptions and New Practices of Global Surrogacy
Intercountry adoption (ICA) has declined significantly since 2004. Now with fewer options for family building with a healthy child or infant via ICA, global surrogacy appears to be replacing the practice in some cases. This article presents a brief history of ICA and ethical dilemmas and human rights concerns and explores global surrogacy, starting with surrogacy practices in India. It then considers the new and emerging practice of surrogacy in …
Family group conferencing as a culturally adaptable intervention
Intercountry adoptions prevent institutionalization but may erode children’s rights to their families and cultural heritage. Family group conferencing offers a culturally adaptable intervention that looks for domestic solutions before turning to out-of-country placements. Guatemalan social work education offers a hospitable environment in which to promote its extension to adoptions
Child adoption and war
The illegal removal of children from biological family life during conflict has a longstanding history. Briefly overviewed are the Vietnam Babylift and a more recent child abduction attempt in Chad. Then, turning to the history of child abduction and adoption history in Latin America, the conflicts of El Salvador and Argentina are presented and ‘living disappeared’ children – those who disappear into adoption networks during war – are discussed. …
Violence Against Women and Asylum Seeking
This paper, based on broader discussions surrounding gender violence and immigration in the U.S., provides critical information on the historical context of extreme violence against women and femicide plaguing Central American societies today. Drawing on experiences of precedent setting cases of Guatemalan women, the authors offer suggestions for culturally specific treatment of and support for women who seek asylum in the U.S. out of justified f…
An Interdisciplinary Approach to Developing Innovative Teaching Strategies For Responding to Global Disaster Disasters
This paper summarizes the development of an interdisciplinary Faculty Learning Community (FLC) bringing together the Virginia Commonwealth University, School of Social Work and Government and Public Affairs, Department of Homeland Security to develop an in depth, comprehensive pedagogical approach to the many issues associated with disaster risk reduction. As the title suggests, this is an interdisciplinary team that explores learning and demonst…
Social Justice and Intercountry Adoptions
Using social justice as the conceptual foundation, the authors present the structural barriers to socially just intercountry adoptions (ICAs) that can exploit and oppress vulnerable children and families participating in ICAs. They argue that such practices threaten the integrity of social work practice in that arena and the survival of ICA as a placement option. Government structures, disparity of power between countries and families on both sid…
Voice and Community in the Corporate Academy
This article is the story of the simultaneous feminization and corporatization of universities, themes that emerged in a test of a collective biography, a qualitative research method. Organizers brought together 12 macro social work academic women across generations and, through sampling, attempted to avoid the intergenerational splitting that seems to be leaving junior faculty to be socialized by administrators while simultaneously isolating sen…
Contextual Adaptation of Family Group Conferencing Model
Guatemala has faced a disproportionate number of children placed outside their families through unethical intercountry adoptions or into large residential settings, jeopardising child and family rights. In response, an international team conducted a pilot training in Guatemala on family group conferencing (FGC) as a means of maintaining children in their homes or with their kin. The training participants were child welfare professionals from gove…
International private law to regulate commercial global surrogacy practices
International private law is currently being considered to regulate commercial global surrogacy. This brief note discusses the state of social work literature in addition to the International Federation of Social Workers’ position statement, identifying a lack of empirical grounding in social work research. Global surrogacy is framed against previous social work research and policy development related to intercountry adoption and international pr…
Global commercial surrogacy and international adoption
Over the decades, there have been numerous trends in the formation of family for those experiencing infertility. Adoption – initially domestic but now mostly international – has long been a prevailing method, with a dual outcome of also finding homes for parentless children. Those would-be parents with a stronger desire for genetic relatedness have turned to assisted reproductive technologies for the creation of their families. In the 21st centur…
Social work education in the Arabian Gulf
Religion is an integral part of life in Islamic countries in the Arabian Gulf nations of Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and thus it informs social work education, practice, and policies. With the expansion of social work education around the world—both through Western universities opening international campuses and local universities developing social work programs—any Western faculty is part of developing…
Altruistic Exploitation
Despite the abundant scientific evidence demonstrating the benefits of family-based care for children and the damages brought on by institution-based care, the social work profession continues to endorse and engage in practices that promote the latter. This is particularly true through orphan tourism and orphan volunteerism—short- and longer-term forms of providing aid to residential facilities caring for children. Using educational tours to orph…
Rescue, red tape, child abduction, illicit adoptions, and discourse
Evidence of child abduction for intercountry adoption challenges our notions of altruism. The history of illicit adoptions and child abduction is presented with specific emphasis on Guatemala as a case example. Drawing on data produced in an ethnographic research, the analysis searches to elucidate how those involved in intercountry adoption in Spain (mainly adoptive and prospective adoptive parents) deal with signs of fraud and corruption. The r…
The Care of Orphaned and Vulnerable Children in Islam
Regulating Commercial Global Surrogacy
Building an Effective Child Protection System in India
Forced Child–Family Separations in the Southwestern U.S. Border Under the “Zero-Tolerance” Policy
Forced Child-Family Separations in the Southwestern US Border Under the “Zero-Tolerance” Policy
Identifying and Addressing Risk in the Implementation of Alternative Care Policies in Cambodia
Political science (32 obras) · Law (25 obras) · Sociology (23 obras) · Law (17 obras) · Child Welfare and Adoption (15 obras) · Social Work (13 obras) · Psychology (10 obras) · Public relations (10 obras) · Reproductive Health and Technologies (10 obras) · Economic growth (9 obras)