A Story with a Happy Ending?
The Post-Reunion Narratives of Transnational Korean Adoptees and Birth Mothers
Date: 2022.10.26 (Wed) 10:00-11:30
Link: https://snu-ac-kr.zoom.us/j/
Meeting ID: 339 537 4845
Contact: anthrobk21plus@snu.ac.kr
Lecture Overview:
How do Korean adoptees in the U.S. begin their journey to search for their birth mothers; and what happens at the end of their journey? Is their reunion “a story with a happy ending?”
This study examines the journeys undertaken by transnational Korean adoptees who seek reunion with their birth mothers (and other family members) and their post-reunion experiences in South Korea. My ethnographic fieldwork in South Korea encompassed conducting in-depth interviews with adoptees and birth mothers; carrying out participant observation as a volunteer for NGOs that facilitated reunions for adoptees; and working as a translator for adoptees, their birth mothers and their families. A complex web of feelings (yearning, fear, love, uncertainty and anger) engulfs adoptees and follows them as they search for their birth mothers. The birth mothers’ feelings echo
those of the adoptees, but their own emotions of guilt, inadequacy, and fear of rejection further complicate their encounters.
Through an appreciation of these encounters, this study examines how racialized and gendered fantasies about birth mothers have influenced their relationships. This study challenges monolithic and patriarchal models of motherhood discourse by referencing the non-normative lived experiences and marginalized narratives of adoptees and birth mothers and by re-remembering stories of adoptees and birth mothers as social and collective rather than their own individual histories.