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The Irrational Math of the Heart: Korean Adoptees and Experiential Incommensurability
- Adoption & Culture
- The Ohio State University Press
- Volume 12, Issue 2, 2024
- pp. 199-221
- 10.1353/ado.00016
- Article
- Additional Information
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abstract:
This paper develops an account of experiential incommensurability as a prism through which to understand the embodied and existential dimensions of Korean adoptees' subjectivities and lived realities. Drawing on themes that emerged in interviews with adult Korean adoptees living in Korea and Australia, this paper focuses on how adoptees grapple with the incommensurability of gains and losses—including the complexities of not knowing that accompany it—and navigate racial, cultural, and national (non)belonging in their post-adopted worlds.