racial silence

Abstract

The article serves as an introduction to a Ph.D. dissertation on transnational adoption. The study is based on 35 interviews with adult Ko- rean adoptees who were born between 1967-81 and raised by Danish parents. The ambition of the study is twofold: To produce knowledge about transnational adoption as lived experi- ence and to conceptualize processes of racial- ized subjectification in Denmark. The study points to how kinship and feelings of related- ness within the adoptive family are mediated through a shared Danish identity and partial ef- facement of racialized difference. Effacement and silence surrounding questions of race and racism is viewed in relation to dominant ideals of colorblindness and the idea of Denmark as a tolerant nation. The oral histories display a tension between experiences of racialized sub- jectification and a wider cultural denial of ra- cialized differentiation in Denmark. The study draws on feminist, postcolonial, and queer theory as well as critical adoption studies.