5 Questions with Paper Orphans
Kelly Bartholomeusz is a writer and community development worker living on Wurundjeri land. Working across genres and mediums, her creative projects often explore ideas of resistance, opacity, emergence and care. She was a recent participant in West Writers, and a 2022-23 recipient of Signal Boost, a Wheeler Centre initiative
for emerging audio producers.
Ryan Gustafsson is a writer and researcher living and working on Wurundjeri land. Their writing has appeared in the International Journal of Cultural Studies, Australian Feminist Law Journal, Peril Magazine, Island Magazine, and Bent Street, among others.
No.1
Kelly, your podcast Paper Orphans, on Korean intercountry adoption, was made with the support of the Wheeler Centre’s Signal Boost program, where participants were free to create a piece about anything that interested them in a style of their choosing. What made you pursue this topic in the first place?
Signal Boost was great in the sense that the briefs were very open-ended, so we all had a lot of scope to work on subjects that resonated with us. My introduction to the topic of South Korean intercountry adoption felt somewhat serendipitous: while I was trying to decide how to approach the brief, Ryan and I were both on a writers’ residency at InPlace. He shared with the group one evening about his journey into activism, specifically activism on the rights of South Korean adoptees. He spoke about the work being done by adoptee activists all over the world to seek answers to questions around unethical adoption practices that have enormously impacted adoptees’ lives.
I’m always interested in how social and political dynamics intertwine, and how the political manifests in overlooked or unexpected ways. The story is also an example of a global self-organising of an otherwise disparate group of people to grapple with a shared history and seek justice—however nebulous a concept that may be—in the present. These adoption practices have occurred in South Korea for over seventy years and implicate many other countries, so it’s a huge and complex history. It seemed like there was a lot worth examining, and after initial conversations with Ryan, I felt hopeful that my work would add value.
No.2
While you’re telling stories which feel deeply connected to you in some way, as a writer who is interested in the intersections between place, culture and politics, it’s not an immediate experience. How do you navigate this, and what do you think are some responsibilities for podcasters and journalists who are telling stories and documenting the lives of those outside of their immediate community?
This is a great question! In 2023, as we collectively come to terms with a legacy of appropriation in media and the arts, the questions we’re often encouraged to ask ourselves are, ‘Why this story? And why am I the right person to tell it?’
Those are really important questions. But I also think that, in certain instances, ‘I find it interesting’ is a good enough starting point. To put it simply, that’s how I came to this story: I found it interesting. But if that’s the answer, it’s an important factor to reflect upon. What does it mean to engage with a subject out of curiosity, when for others the stakes are much higher? What does it mean to be an ‘outsider’ telling a story?
For me, while working on Paper Orphans, that meant taking a lot of care to make sure I had a proper understanding of the context and the objectives of the activists involved. It also meant conversations with Ryan and Mary (the other adoptee featured in the series) to understand the ways in which other coverage of South Korean intercountry adoption has been unhelpful. That was really illuminating: I found that a lot of coverage tends to privilege the experiences of adoptee’s families over the adoptees themselves, or tend to obsess over the romantic idea of ‘reunion’ with biological families.
All of this research helped me map out the contours of the work, and actually made it a much more interesting series to produce: how do I make something engaging and emotive without defaulting to tropes or invading people’s privacy? I’m sure I didn’t manage all of this perfectly, but I’m hopeful that I mostly got it right.
No.3
Ryan, can you tell us a little about your recently-accepted submission to the Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission? What did it entail, who did you work with, and what do you hope will result from that?
The submission was led by a group of Korean adoptees in/from Denmark (Danish Korean Rights Group). Many adoptees were raising questions about their histories, circumstances of relinquishment, and discrepancies in their files—group leaders had begun noticing some concerning commonalities. In mid-2022 the Danish group lodged cases with South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was accepting submissions regarding human rights violations during the authoritarian era. Several Korean adoptees here in Australia were aware and in support of their efforts. However, as the Commission’s deadline for submissions fast approached, it became clear that one of the four Korean overseas adoption agencies—the agency that facilitates all formal Korean adoptions to Australia and roughly 30,000 adoptions to the United States—was not going to be included, unless another group stepped in. So a small group of us rushed to prepare a group case accompanied by individual submissions... I think we had about three weeks or so to get everything written, translated, and organized? It was pretty chaotic. We submitted our cases in December 2022 and received notification of acceptance in June this year.
The longer answer—and in a sense the more truthful one—is that Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission receiving submissions by 370+ adoptees from around the world is the outcome of decades of work by adoptees and their allies. This work has been disparate; it has been creative, conversational, non-linear, and not straightforwardly or consciously ‘political’.
My hope is that the investigation will result in a real opportunity for Korean society to reckon with their overseas adoption system and its legacy; it is their history, after all, as much as it is ours. What had to happen, and under what social and political circumstances, for over 200,000 children to be sent overseas? I also hope the Commission’s proceedings play a role in shifting understandings and generating knowledge of intercountry adoption as a system that impacts the collective history of adoptees, beyond the individual level.
No.4
You also coined a term—‘hyper(in)visibility’—specific to the Korean adoptee experience. Can you speak more to that?
By hyper(in)visibility, I’m attempting to think through the existential sense of feeling like one doesn’t quite belong, that one has a kind of tenuous presence in the world.
Initially I was focused primarily on adoptees’ racial embodiment and experiences of racism. In western countries where most adoptees were raised, their racialised differences were amplified—they were hypervisible in many social contexts, especially if they were the only person of color in their families and communities. At the same time, prevailing discourses around ‘colorblindness’ and the ‘clean break’ model of adoption often meant adoptees’ differences were rendered invisible and unacknowledged. Further, research on transracial adoptee experiences has found that many did not ‘feel like’ or identify with being Asian or Korean, particularly prior to adulthood.
This feeling of alienation was often heightened when visiting Korea, or when adoptees were assumed to be familiar with Korean culture and norms (e.g. perceived as an non-adopted Korean). In these cases, the adoptee no longer ‘stands out’ on the visual register, but their difference is made patently clear to them. So there was this sense of being assigned to social categories due to their bodily appearances (and all that assignment entailed, in the context of racism and xenophobia)—which they felt little connection to, nor knew much, if anything, about. Hyper(in)visibility is an attempt to conceptualize the experiential contours of this social position, wherein one must navigate visibility and invisibility, and often without many opportunities for respite.
I’ve since started exploring the more spatial and temporal aspects of hyper(in)visibility, in particular through the motif of ghostliness and haunting which recur in adoptee texts. I think hyper(in)visibility expresses something akin to an abiding feeling of ‘being elsewhere’ (rather than a ‘being in between’ cultures or worlds), a feeling of being out of place and perhaps, too, out of time. This exploration has led me to engage with some really interesting work on diaspora and subjectivity, and I’m excited to see where this takes me.
No.5
Finally, back to you, Kelly: what are the most exciting parts of making audio, and what are its least pleasurable parts? Do you have any advice to aspiring podcasters who are interested in making podcasts with a social justice lens?
Prior to starting Signal Boost I had a little bit of audio producing experience from my uni days, but my background is mostly in writing. It was fun to jump back into that world. Some of the principles—structure, storytelling, etc—are similar, but many are different. I’m no expert, but I’m enjoying the learning process.
I think my favourite part of making audio is crafting a story while enabling people to speak for themselves. For instance, I wouldn’t consider writing an essay on South Korean intercountry adoption, but the audio format allowed for Ryan and Mary to be the primary voices in the piece. It was really interesting to work with them and I learned a lot from their expertise.
Speaking of which, something I believe in really strongly (which is probably an influence of my community development background) is that people are the experts of their own lives and contexts. People who are seen as ‘victims’ can often have really disempowering experiences with the media, which is good to keep in mind to avoid replicating that experience. Communication and involvement at all stages, including concept development, felt really important to me.
Furthermore, if, like me, you don’t really see yourself as a journalist, bear in mind that the law doesn’t really care about that distinction. You may be producing work with the aim of supporting social justice causes, but if it’s in a documentary format, it needs to be based in verifiable fact. Defamation law is real, so it doesn’t hurt to have someone with that expertise look over your work. The Arts Law Centre has great resources in this regard.
Through Signal Boost I was also assigned a mentor, the incredible Karishma Luthria who is an audio producer at The Guardian. This was really so valuable, and I think the pieces would otherwise have turned out very differently. If you can find a mentor, I would recommend it!
Finally, if you’re based in Australia and looking to do some audio producing with support and guidance, All The Best is a great place to start.
(Kelly Bartholomeusz)
(Ryan Gustafsson)
Imagine knowing of records, written about you, that could change your life—but are not yours to access.
Since the end of the Korean War, over 200,000 South Korean babies and children have been adopted overseas under one of the largest and longest running intercountry adoption programs in the world. Many of these adoptees are asking questions about the systems and practices that have shaped the course of their lives.
In this two part series, Kelly Bartholomeusz interrogates the issue of Korean intercountry adoption.
The Signal Boost Podcast is presented by the Wheeler Centre and made possible by the generous support of the Ian Potter Foundation.
You can find out more at www.wheelercentre.com/signal-boost.