Resources & Further Reading

I would not have been able to carry out any of the research for this website if it weren’t for my very precious alumni membership to the University of Adelaide Library (and the Google Translate function on Chrome).

Many of the best and most detailed resources on intercountry adoption are hard to access because they are in academic journals, which are best searched and only freely accessible from a paying institution.

But here are the articles and books I relied on to better understand the background on Korea and its relationship with adoption and the social landscape at the time I was adopted.

Books

To Save the Children of Korea: The Cold War Origins of International Adoption by Arissa H. Oh

The Global ‘Orphan’ Adoption System: South Korea’s Impact on its Origin and Development by Kyung-eun Lee

Birth Mothers and Transnational Adoption Practice in South Korea Virtual Mothering by Hosu Kim

Adopted Territory : Transnational Korean adoptees and the Politics of Belonging by Eleana J. Kim

Other People's Children : Adoption in Australia Edited by Denise Cuthbert and Ceridwen Spark

Sex Among Allies : Military Prostitution in U.S.-Korea Relations by Katharine Moon

Comforting an Orphaned Nation by Tobias Hübinette

Class Struggle or Family Struggle?: The Lives of Women Factory Workers in South Korea by Seung-Kyung Kim

Adoption Deception: A Personal and Professional Journey by Penny Mackieson

Articles

South Korea’s Legacy of Orphan Adoption and the Violation of Adoptees’ Rights to Know their Origins in Childhood 2022 by Kyung Eun Lee

The Question of Adoption: “Divided” Korea, “Neutral” Sweden, and Cold War Geopolitics, 1964–75 in The Journal of Asian Studies 2021 by Youngeun Koo

From War Waif to Ideal Immigrant: The Cold War Transformation of the Korean Orphan in Journal of American Ethnic History 2012 by Arissa H. Oh

Sight Unseen: Proxy War, Proxy Adoption in Representations 2023 by Kelly M. Rich

“That was Then, but This is Now”: Historical Perspectives on Intercountry Adoption and Domestic Child Adoption in Australian Public Policy in Journal of Historical Sociology 2010 by Denise Cuthbert, Ceridwen Spark, Kate Murphy

Controversy and Its Implications for the Practice of Contemporary Social Work in Intercountry Adoptions: A Korean–Australian Case Study in Australian Social Work 2010 by Patricia Fronek & Cheryl Tilse

Goal Displacement and Dependency in South Korean-United States Intercountry Adoption in Children and Youth Services Review 1998 by Rosemary C. Sarri, Yenoak Baik, Marti Bombyk