AAS-in-Asia, Seoul

Korean adoptee citizenship and deportation, census and dissensus

• In Event: Tethered Subjectivities and Human Trafficking in These Migratory Times

Abstract

Korean adoptees are often researched in placement countries through the conceptual lens of racial exceptionalism or social death within a predominantly U.S. framework. Instead, I'm interested in how on the one hand, the systemic failure to guarantee Korean nationality or the conferment of citizenship for children sent overseas to primarily US and European placement countries demonstrates a range of disparate views of citizenship premised on children's rights vs. adult rights, human rights and redress. And on the other, how cases that span adoptee statelessness, deportation, and dual citizenship conditioned by post-War and now neoliberalism have served to incubate ideas that have become linchpins in Korea's state policies regarding emigration and immigration, multiculturalism and migrant labor rights, and human rights in Asia. Finally, I also examine Korean adoptees through the lens of tethered boundary objects, to better understand what is both shared and contested between different adopting communities, with each holding its own understanding of citizenship.

Author

• Tammy Ko Robinson, Hanyang University