Korean Transnational Adoption to Australia: ‘quiet’ migrants, diaspora, and ‘hometactics’

Abstract

Approximately 3,600 South Korean children have been adopted to Australia since 1969, making them the largest cohort of intercountry adoptees in Australia. Referred to by demographers as the 'quiet' or 'unknown' migration, transnational or intercountry adoption has tended to sit uneasily within, and has sometimes been excluded from, accounts of migration. Research suggests that South Korean adoptees inhabit and negotiate multiple social positions and identities. There remain relatively few studies that focus specifically on the experiences of Korean-Australian adoptees, their connections to South Korea, and engagements with Korean adoptee culture. This article argues that the notion of 'hometactics,' theorised by feminist philosopher Mariana Ortega, is a useful concept for understanding the various ways in which adopted Korean Australians navigate being 'in between' worlds. Intercountry adoption to Australia South Korean (hereafter Korean) international adoption began in the aftermath of the Korean War (1950-53) and was characterised as a humanitarian response to the plight of thousands of orphaned children. The first 'wave' or 'generation' of Korean adoptees were adopted by families in the US and Western Europe. While adoption as a practice has a long history that predates the mid-1950s, postwar Korean adoption

Korean Adoption to Australia as Quiet and Orderly Child Migration

“…Their perceived bare vulnerability was a call to action, but they were also legally constructed as such since the 'orphan' in adoption documents was not necessarily a parentless child. Korean adoption agencies administratively produced orphanhood to more efficiently and systematically administer overseas adoptions on a large scale (Gustafsson 2021a(Gustafsson , 2021b Despite revisions to the adoption law in 1976 (Adoption Promotion and Procedure Act), the Korean adoption system has allowed legal guardians, grandparents, or other relatives with custody to finalise adoptions if able to provide documentation of "unusual circumstances (e.g., a dead or missing parent)" (H. Kim 2016, p. 6). Due to loopholes and lack of regulatory oversight, the relinquishment of a child to an adoption agency did not always involve the consent of the original mother.…”