A greatmobilization began in South Korea in the 1990s: adult transnational adopteesbegan to return to their birth country and meet for the first time with theirbirth parents—sometimes in televised encounters which garnered high ratings. What makes the case of South Korea remarkable is the sheerscale of the activity that has taken place around the adult adoptees' return,and by extension the national significance that has been accorded to thesefamily meetings.
Informed by theauthor’s own experience as an adoptee and two years of ethnographic research inSeoul, as well as an analysis of the popular television program I Want toSee This Person Again, which reunites families,Meeting Once Moresheds light on an understudied aspect of transnational adoption: the impact ofadoptees on their birth country, and especially on their birth families. Thevolume offers a complex and fascinating contribution to the study of newkinship models, migration, and the anthropology of media, as well as to thestudy of South Korea.
Thoughtfully written, drawing on her own life experience as well as her anthropological training, Prébin provides us with a new window into the complex world of trans-national adoption. She weaves together kinship, media, and globalization as well as recent Korean history to offer us lessons about today's adoption practices.
-Barbara Katz Rothman, author of
Weaving A Family: Untangling Race and Adoption A compelling ethnography of Korean adoptee reunions, which come to life not as inevitable kinship connections, but as social and cultural work. To great effect, Prébin zooms in on South Korea’s signature reunion television program as a window on nothing short of the country’s emotional life. . . . A must-read for those with interests in adoption, kinship, media, and the Koreas. -Nancy Abelmann,University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Il£.
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