Discursive struggles in “real” families: Korean adoptees, adoptive parents, and birth family reunions

• Published date: 01 April 2022
• Author: Sara Docan‐Morgan
• Date: 01 April 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12596

ORIGINAL RESEARCH

Discursive struggles in “real”families: Korean

adoptees, adoptive parents, and birth family reunions

Sara Docan-Morgan

Communication Studies, University of

Wisconsin–La Crosse, La Crosse,

Wisconsin, USA

Correspondence

Sara Docan-Morgan, Communication Studies,

University of Wisconsin–La Crosse, 4229

Centennial Hall, 1725 State Street, La Crosse,

WI 54601, USA.

Email: sdocan-morgan@uwlax.edu

Funding information

University of Wisconsin, Institute on Race and

Ethnicity

Abstract

Objective: This study explores transnational Korean

adoptees’interactions with their adoptive families sur-

rounding birth family reunion.

Background: Using relational dialectics theory as a guide,

this study takes an adoptee-centered approach to under-

standing the broader cultural and relational discourses that

interplay with adoptee and adoptive parent messages sur-

rounding birth family reunions.

Method: In-depth interviews with 19 Korean adult

adoptees from the United States and Denmark were con-

ducted to explore adoptive family interactions surrounding

reunion.

Results: Most participants reported that their adoptive

parents responded supportively to reunion. Still, partici-

pants’responses revealed two main discourses surrounding

their own communication with their adoptive family sur-

rounding reunion: reassuring their adoptive family and

holding back affection or questions toward the birth family

in the presence of an adoptive parent. Cultural discourses

about having only one set of “real”parents and other

adoptees’experiences interplayed with the discourses of

reassurance and holding back. Adoptees whose parents

were open about their birth family from a young age

tended recall reassuring their parents.

Conclusion: Even with adoptive parent support, adoptees

may still feel the need to reassure their adoptive parents and

hold back affection and curiosity toward the birth family.

Implications: Holding back may prevent adoptees from

engaging with their birth families fully. Reassuring turns

the focus toward the adoptive parents. Practitioners should

encourage ongoing communication about the birth family,

and adoptive parents should show active support for the

reunion and interest in the birth family afterward.

Received: 29 May 2020Revised: 17 November 2020Accepted: 3 April 2021

DOI: 10.1111/fare.12596

© 2021 National Council on Family Relations.

542 Family Relations. 2022;71:542–560.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/fare

KEYWORDS

adoption, adoptive families, birth families, Korean adoption, reunion

INTRODUCTION

In the past few decades, adoption has become increasingly open, tending to favor at least some

contact between the adopted person and their birth family,

1

when possible. Yet adoptees and

their adoptive parents may need to navigate challenging conversations when a birth family

reunion is imminent or occurring. In these situations, adoptees may feel pulled between feelings

of loyalty to their adoptive parents (Jones, 2015; Palmer, 2011) and their desire to learn

about their birth family and origins (Son, 2017). Adoptive parents may also feel conflicted,

wanting to support their child in this process but also fearing losing their child to the birth

parents (Park Nelson, 2016). Importantly, birth family reunions, and conversations with

adoptive parents about birth families are exchanged within a contradictory social context

that recognizes adoptive parents as “real”parents, while simultaneously affirming bioge-

netic, or blood, relations as the most legitimate criterion for family. Given these multiple

contradictions, this study uses relational dialectics theory (RDT) (Baxter, 2011) to explore

the discourses at play in Korean adoptees’communication with their adoptive parents sur-

rounding birth family reunions.

Most existing research on reunions has focused on domestic reunions rather than reunions

for transnational (a.k.a. intercountry, international) adoptees. However, transnational adoptees

may face specific challenges. Due to the timing and circumstances surrounding transnational

adoptions, their adoptive parents may not have anticipated reunion or may have concerns

about their child traveling or moving to a foreign country. These expectations and concerns will

influence family communication in ways that differ from those of domestic adoptees. Therefore,

this study focuses on transnational Korean adoptees who have reunited with their birth families,

given that many have done so due to the circumstances surrounding their availability for adop-

tion (Kim, 2010). Their accounts of adoptive family communication surrounding birth family

reunions are explored.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Relational dialectics theory 2.0

This study uses relational dialectics theory (RDT; Baxter, 2004, 2011) as a guiding framework

for understanding how Korean adoptees and their adoptive parents communicate about

reunions and birth families. This thereby expands work by communication scholars who have

used RDT as a way to understand communication surrounding adoption (see Harrigan &

Braithwaite, 2010). More specifically, this study draws on RDT 2.0, articulated in Baxter (2011)

and Baxter and Norwood (2015), by focusing on competing discourses, the utterance chain,

power, and the use of contrapuntal analysis.

Emerging from cultural theorist Mikhail Bakhtin’s (1982) work on dialogism, RDT draws

attention to “how the meanings surrounding individual and relationship identities are con-

structed through language use”(Baxter, 2011, p. 2). These meanings are constructed through

discourses, or “systems of meaning”(Baxter, 2011, p. 2), which are often competing. RDT

assumes that meanings arise out of discursive struggle, arguing that dialogue is often multi-

vocal, indeterminate, and continuous (Suter & Seurer, 2018). RDT is a particularly appropriate

1

Also referred to as first family.

KOREAN ADOPTEES AND REUNION543