저희 서울대학교 인류학과 BK교육연구단에서는 미국 우스터대(The College of Wooster)의 Sina Lee 교수님을 모시고 < A Story with a Happy Ending? The Post-Reunion Narratives of Transnational Korean Adoptees and Birth Mothers >라는 제목의 강연을 개최합니다. 본 강연은 미국으로 입양된 입양인들이 한국으로 돌아와 출생가족을 찾는 내러티브를 따라가며 가족과 모성을 인종과 젠더의 교차점에서 탐구하는 귀한 시간이 될 것입니다. 관심있는 많은 분들의 성원 부탁드립니다.
본 강연은 영어로 진행되는 비대면 행사입니다.
A Story with a Happy Ending?
The Post-Reunion Narratives of Transnational Korean Adoptees and Birth Mothers
일시: 2022년 10월 26일 (수) 10:00-11:30
장소: https://snu-ac-kr.zoom.us/j/3395374845
회의 ID: 339 537 4845
문의: anthrobk21plus@snu.ac.kr
강의 개요:
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.