As the world's fifteenth largest economy, South Korea presents itself as a unique case in the transnational system of adoption. Its current demographic profile, characterized by the world's “lowest-low fertility,” rapidly “aging population,” and “shrinking workforce,” is reminiscent of that of the “receiving countries” (p. 3). In 2008, however, South Korea sent 1,250 children to overseas homes (p. 20). Public discussions around adoption have been heavily dominated by its proponents, who argue for its beneficial impacts on individual adoptees, and its opponents, who denounce it for reproducing race, class, and gender inequalities. In South Korea, particularly, the continuance of transnational adoption often has been a subject of national embarrassment and even translated as a sign of the country's incomplete modernization. By making visible rather “unheard” voices of adult Korean adoptees, the anthropologist Eleana Kim's Adopted Territory adds another important dimension to this contested space of adoption.
In Adopted Territory,...
