A01=Sara Docan-Morgan
Adoption
Adoption Studies
Adoptive Families
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
Author_Sara Docan-Morgan
automatic-update
Birth families
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=HBTB
Category=JBSL
Category=JFSL
Category=JFSL3
Category=JHBK
Category=JKSF
Category=NHTB
Category=VFVK
COP=United States
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
eq_bestseller
eq_health-lifestyle
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Family Communication
Kinship
Korean adoptees
Korean adoption
Language_English
PA=Available
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
Reunion
softlaunch
Transnational Adoptee Reunion
Transnational adoption
Product details
- ISBN 9781439922835
- Weight: 399g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 05 Jan 2024
- Publisher: Temple University Press,U.S.
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
“Do you know your real parents?” is a question many adoptees are asked. In In Reunion, Sara Docan-Morgan probes the basic notions of family, adoption, and parenthood by exploring initial meetings and ongoing relationships that transnational Korean adoptees have had with their birth parents and other birth family members. Drawing from qualitative interviews with adult Korean adoptees in the United States and Denmark, as well as her own experiences as an adoptee, Docan-Morgan illuminates the complexities of communication surrounding reunion.
The paradoxes of adoption and reunion-shared history without blood relations, and blood relations without shared history-generate questions: What does it mean to be “family”? How do people use communication to constitute family relationships? How are family relationships created, maintained, and negotiated over time? In Reunion details adoptive and cultural identities, highlighting how adoptees often end up shouldering communicative responsibility in their family relationships. Interviews reveal how adoptees navigate birth family relationships across language and culture while also attempting to maintain relationships with their adoptive family members.
Docan-Morgan details the challenges, rewards, and contradictions of reunion. She also offers practical recommendations for transnational adoptees in reunion, adoptees considering reunion, adoptive families, and adoption practitioners.
In tracing the stories of the intercultural dynamics inherent in adoptees’ reunions, Docan-Morgan demonstrates the effort, flexibility, empathy, self-reflection, and time required to navigate long-term relationships with birth families.
The paradoxes of adoption and reunion-shared history without blood relations, and blood relations without shared history-generate questions: What does it mean to be “family”? How do people use communication to constitute family relationships? How are family relationships created, maintained, and negotiated over time? In Reunion details adoptive and cultural identities, highlighting how adoptees often end up shouldering communicative responsibility in their family relationships. Interviews reveal how adoptees navigate birth family relationships across language and culture while also attempting to maintain relationships with their adoptive family members.
Docan-Morgan details the challenges, rewards, and contradictions of reunion. She also offers practical recommendations for transnational adoptees in reunion, adoptees considering reunion, adoptive families, and adoption practitioners.
In tracing the stories of the intercultural dynamics inherent in adoptees’ reunions, Docan-Morgan demonstrates the effort, flexibility, empathy, self-reflection, and time required to navigate long-term relationships with birth families.
Sara Docan-Morgan is Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse.
