제 2회 한국입양 연구에 관한 서울 국제 심포지엄
한국과 해외 입양한국인:
제 2회 한국입양 연구에 관한 국제심포지엄
Symposium Date: August 3, 2010
Planned location: IKAA Korean Adoptee Gathering, Seoul, Korea.
Symposium Sponsor: IKAA (International Korean Adoptee Associations).
Questions? Contact Kim Park Nelson, greg0051@umn.edu
- Introduction and presentation
- Background and purpose
- Past and Current Research
- Themes and Topics
- Symposium Committee
국제 한국입양인 협회 (IKAA)는 2010년 한국 입양인 만남의 날의 일부 행사로서 제 2회 한국입양연구에 관한 국제 심포지엄을 개최하려고 한다.
심포지엄 개최의 목적은 새로이 또한 급격히 번창하고 있는 이 학술분야를 설립하고 개척하기 위함이다. 특별히 한국입양 연구분야는 해외에 입양된 한국인은 물론, 한국으로부터의 국제입양에 중점을 두고 있다. 최근에는 입양의 본국인 한국과, 한국인을 입양 받는 서방에서 한 연구영역으로 자리를 잡았다. 또한 이번 심포지엄은 세계에서 한국입양 연구를 지도하고 있는 여러 석학들이 모이는 기회가 될 것이다. 이 석학들은 아시아와 한국연구, 식민 이후 문화연구와 사회 행동과학 등 여러 전문분야에 종사하고 있으며, 민족성, 이민, 난민, 국제화와 초민족주의 문제 등을 연구하고 있다.
하루 일정의 여러 전문분야에 걸친 이번 심포지엄은 대한한국, 서울에서 열릴 예정이며 유인물 프레젠테이션과 열린 토의로 진행이 된다. 심포지엄 동안 배포될 자료는 회보를 모아서 제작한 자료이며, 대학도서관에도 배치될 예정이다. 2007년의 제1회 심포지엄은 한국입양 연구 석학들의 네트워크를 넓히는데 기초가 되었고, 2010년 심포지엄은 이 네트워크를 계속 확장시키고, 학식의 범위를 높이며, 한국에 있는 학자들이 이룬 연구를 반영하는 기회가 될 것이다.
Background and purpose
South Korea’s history of over half a century of continuous and uninterrupted international adoption provides the background for this symposium. Since the 1953 armistice that suspended the Korean War, almost 200,000 Korean children have been sent for adoption to 15 principal host countries in the Western world. Of those children, over 120,000 were sent to the United States, 60,000 to Europe (with half in Scandinavia of which 10,000 arrived in Sweden alone), and the remaining 10,000 were sent to Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In its significant demographic scope, its lengthy time span, and its wide-ranging geographic spread, international adoption from Korea is unprecedented in modern history as the largest global transfer of children in the world. Today, still around 1,500 children leave Korea every year for adoption to eight different Western countries. The child welfare practice commonly known as international adoption, i.e., the transnational/ transcontinental, and, often, transracial/transcultural adoption, of predominantly non-Western children to primarily Western parents, was carried out in Korea directly following the war. As such, Korean adoption has become a model for understanding subsequent waves of international adoption. Furthermore, adopted Koreans are not only the most numerous, diverse and widespread of the world’s child migrants, but also constitute the first generation and population of transnational and transracial adoptees. The field of Korean adoption studies thus provides a foundation for understanding international adoption and internationally adopted people as a whole.
Past and Current Research
For many years, the subject of international adoption from Korea and adopted Koreans was an under-researched area in academia. The field, as it existed then, was dominated by professionals in social work, psychology, and medicine. The first academic studies on Korean adoption started to come out in the mid-1970s, both in Korea and in the West, but it was not until the mid-1990s that one could begin to talk about a full-fledged field of Korean adoption studies.
In Korean academia, the majority of adoption studies discuss international adoption in terms of social welfare or legislation, and primarily from the perspectives of social work and family law. But Korean research interest in adult adopted Koreans has grown in recent years, with studies focusing on the life consequences for adoptees who have revisited Korea and/or reunited with their Korean family members, as well as cultural studies oriented textual analyses of adopted Korean self-narratives.
On the other side of the world, adoption scholarship in the leading adopting regions of North America, Scandinavia and Western Europe mainly focus on the behavioral and emotional adjustment of adoptees, including their attachment and adjustment to the adoptive family and assimilation and acculturation to the host culture. In addition, a growing number of studies have started to look at Korean international adoption from a comparative historical perspective and others have conceptualized it as a migratory practice linked to globalization and transnational processes. There is also a growing body of research on adoptees’ language detrition and attrition and their cultural output of art, film, and literature.
Finally, a new research trend that has emerged both in Korea and in the West deals with the question of an identity and community specific to adopted Koreans, in the context of existing theories of ethnicity, migration, and diaspora.
This symposium aims to bring together researchers who focus either on international adoption from Korea or on overseas adopted Koreans from these different perspectives and approaches.
Themes and Topics
We welcome submissions from any academic background or perspective, and especially welcome work with multi-or interdisciplinary perspectives. Suggested topics include (but are not limited to):
• The Korean state and international adoption policy /adoption and Korea’s image in the world. We especially encourage the submission of papers that focus on Korean adoption as a social, cultural or political phenomenon within the nation of South Korea including research that originates from within South Korea.
• Korean adoptees as part of Korean diaspora and/or Korean adoption as a part of Asian North American, Asian European, or Asian Australian experience.
• Comparative projects that examine Korean adoption and adoption from other countries.
• In-between identities and familial relations and the impact of Korean adoption on the adoption triad members.
• Empirical research that examines a specific question or salient issue within the Korean adoptee community, including the behavioural adjustment and emotional development of Korean adoptees from normative standpoints as opposed to pathologized approaches. We also encourage work that can detail the logic of inquiry or research methods, and that provides sufficient evidence to support and interpret results.
• Projects that explore the social phenomenon of multiple group status held by Korean adoptees and their relative experiences in North America, Australia, and Europe.
• Korean adoptees as subjects of cultural production including literature, fine arts, or blogs. We especially encourage work that examines Korean adoption in documentary or cinema.
Symposium Committee
Kim Park Nelson, Minnesota State University at Moorhead, USA (Chair)
Tobias Hübinette, Multicultural Centre, Sweden
Eleana Kim, University of Rochester, USA
Jennifer Kwon Dobbs, St. Olaf College, USA
Lene Myong Petersen, Aarhus University, Denmark
Any questions regarding the Symposium, contact Kim Park Nelson, greg0051@umn.edu
