In the latest episode of the AU’s What Next: The Adoptee Rights Podcast, Greg talks with Jennifer Kwon Dobbs and Ryan Gustafsson—two Korean-born transnational adoptees, scholars, and advocates—about their cases (and other cases) before the South Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Jennifer and Ryan discuss their own personal experiences as well as what is meant by truth and reconciliation, not only in a global context but more specifically in the context of problematic and illicit intercountry adoptions from Korea.
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About Our Guests
Ryan Gustafsson is a researcher in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne. Trained in continental philosophy (phenomenology) and social theory, they conduct research on Korean overseas adoption, transracial adoptee lived experiences, migration, and diaspora. Ryan is the co-founder of the Philosophies of Difference (PoD) group and the Korean Adoptee Adoption Research Network (KAARN), which organize open-to-public seminars and symposia. Their nonfiction writing has appeared in literary outlets including Sydney Review of Books, Liminal Magazine, Peril Magazine, Island Magazine, and others.
Born in Wonju, Republic of Korea, Jennifer Kwon Dobbs is the author of Interrogation Room (White Pine Press, 2018); Paper Pavilion (White Pine, 2007), winner of the White Pine Press Poetry Prize; and the chapbooks Notes from a Missing Person (Essay Press, 2015) and Necro Citizens (German/English edition, hochroth Verlag, 2019). Interrogation Room received mention in The New York Times, was praised by World Literature Today for “a vigorous restlessness,” and won the Association of Asian American Studies Award in Creative Writing: Poetry. She also co-translates Sámi poetry with poet-scholar Johanna Domokos, and their translation of Niillas Holmberg’s Juolgevuođđu, published as Underfoot (White Pine Press, 2022), received the American-Scandinavian Foundation’s Lief and Inger Sjöberg Prize. She is professor of English and Race, Ethnic, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at St. Olaf College and lives in Minnesota.
Additional Links/Resources
- The Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission
- Recent AP Report and Frontline Documentary: South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning
- Danish Korean Rights Group (DKRG)
- Reports from the Netherlands, France, and Switzerland on Intercountry Adoption
Like what you hear? Support our work and conversations on the podcast by contributing to Adoptees United, a national nonprofit organization working to educate and empower adopted people and to challenge and change the dominant narrative of adoption.
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