2026 Biennial Conference

The 2026 event will be the first time that ASAC has held its biennial conference outside of North America. We’re hosting the conference in the UK to mark the 100th anniversary of the Adoption of Children Act (1926) in England and Wales.

All across the world, the legislation concerning adoption is characterised by precepts and prohibitions that differently impact everyone involved in adoption constellations. Adoption law often maintains a fiction that adoption is a legal contract that entails consent, a fiction often at odds with realities and lived experience. Indeed, such laws may appear to prevent inequalities and harms when they merely hide or perpetuate them. For example, the 1926 Adoption Act prohibits ‘payment or any other award in consideration of the adoption’, although matters of financial inequality and incentivisation often play a part in unfamilying consanguineous kin. Likewise, these days the ‘rights balancing’ exercise which jurists must carry out when considering whether or not to make an adoption or placement order, draws upon various legal fictions (e.g., ‘as if born to’, ‘right to appeal’, ‘irrevocability’, ‘right to identity’) often involving conflicting definitions of welfare and whose rights are paramount. The conference invites explorations of crossovers between legal and other ways in which adoption has been arranged, maintained, and imagined.

This conference will include a combination of onsite at University of Leeds and live webinars. Most sessions will be in-person; only webinars will be available for remote participants. Modality preference should be indicated on your proposal.