ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses experiences of “Otherness” as processes of racial re-embodiment. Korean adoptees talked about how they “felt white” and, when faced with their racialised “Asianness”, described this feeling as if they were wearing a mask that they could never take off. The fact that their bodies are not “white” and others do not perceive them in this way creates a situation in which they are forced to become aware of their racialised difference that is at odds with how they feel. In response, they work to “re-embody” a white identity to the point that, as one adoptee explained, “I don’t see Korean”. By analysing these processes of identity as processes of feeling identity or (re)embodiment, this chapter offers new insight into the ways in which Korean adoptees transgress socially constructed boundaries of “whiteness” and “Otherness”. This chapter uses theories of critical phenomenology in anthropology, sociology and cultural studies to provide an analytical framework for understanding how Korean adoptees experience their identities and their bodies as “white” and the emotional labour involved in trying to maintain this. In analysing the process of (re)embodying a white identity, the disconnect that is raised between adoptees’ past and present lives is also discussed.
