(Re) embodying identity: understanding belonging, ‘difference’ and transnational adoption through the lived experiences of Korean adoptees

Since the Korean War (1950‐1953), over 170,000 Korean children have been adopted from South Korea and dispersed across the world to families in ‘the West’. As Korean adoptees reach adulthood, many are going back to South Korea through their own initiatives to understand their ‘past’ and to try to identify with a part of themselves that feels ‘unknown’. This study considers the significance of these dual transnational movements for Korean adoptees’ identities. Based on their lived experiences, this dissertation explores the ways Korean adoptees make sense of their identities in their adoptive countries and in South Korea. Specifically, it draws on social scientific theories to focus on topics of ‘difference’, embodiment, experience and belonging. Another key aim of this study is to examine some of the conventional ideas about kinship and identity that are embedded in a Euro‐American construction of adoption. Through this analysis, issues associated with adoptees such as ‘loss’, ‘incomplete identities’ and ‘a need to search’ are alternatively considered to be socially and culturally derived rather than unproblematically viewed as individual problems. Overall, this is a qualitative anthropological study that engages with Korean adoptees’ lived experiences as they work to situate their identities within shifting socio‐cultural contexts. A central goal throughout the course of this research has been to generate greater understanding about the complex processes involved for transnationally adopted people as they try to negotiate their identities within contested spaces of belonging. This study concludes by looking at the significance of shared experiences and mutual understanding between adoptees and the impact this has on their sense of belonging.