Speakers

is Associate Professor of City and Regional Planning at the University of Stavanger. His current research examines how imaginaries of progress shape political, economic, and cultural relations of production and consumption with a particular focus on aspects of justice. His geographical focus is on Scandinavia and South Korea. He is a founding member of the Social and Spatial Justice research group at the University of Stavanger and the European research collective Ghosts of Empire in the North Sea. As an adoptee activist, he was a founding member of the Adoptionspolitisk Forum in Denmark and the Adoptees of Color Roundtable in the US.

is a postdoctoral researcher in the ERC Consolidator Grant Project “Tales of the Diasporic Ordinary. Aesthetics, Affects, Archives” at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. She was a postdoctoral researcher at the ICI Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry and at the Braunschweig University of Art. Her research focuses on migrant and diasporic writing and art, queer and postcolonial archives, and reparative practices after Eve Sedgwick. She is currently working on a creative nonfiction and archive based manuscript about adoptions from Korea in West Germany from the 1960s to the 1980s.

is a social scientist based in Bolivia, currently working at the Research Institute for Behavioral Sciences at the Universidad Católica Boliviana “San Pablo” in La Paz. In 2023, he earned a PhD in Gender and Diversity Studies from Ghent University. His doctoral thesis critically examines the adoption and child protection system in Bolivia, with a particular focus on families of origin. Cawayu’s expertise centres on childhood and child protection, with specific interests in transnational adoption, care-leavers, and sexual violence against children.

is a PhD candidate at the Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies, University of Oslo, writing a dissertation on Scandinavian adoption literature. Mortensen has also written books of fiction and poetry, published by Flamme Forlag.

holds an M.A. in Comparative Literature from Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich (2009), and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Riverside (2017). Her dissertation examines literary and cinematic discourses of national division and unification in Korea and Germany. Her current research centers on women's literature and writing of solidarity during Feminism Reboot in South Korea within the context of global Fourth Wave Feminism. Additionally, she explores the cultural and literary productions of the Korean diaspora. Since 2018, she has been a post-doctoral researcher and now serves as a lecturer (Akademische Rätin) at the Department of Korean Studies at the University of Tübingen, Germany.

specializes in the contemporary history of children and youth and is interested in the global dynamics of power and care. Her doctoral thesis about the history of transnational adoption in Belgium was awarded the 2024 SHCY Dissertation Award. She was a member of the Flemish expert panel on malpractices in intercountry adoptions and worked as a scientific collaborator on the research project ‘Resolution-Métis’ (State Archives of Belgium). She is currently affiliated with the NWO-funded project ‘Child Separation’ (2023-2027) and is conducting research on child circulation and institutional youth care in the Dutch East Indies and Indonesia (1808-1984).

was born in Busan and adopted to the Netherlands in 1980. She is the founder of the ARAN (Adoptee Rights Activism Netherlands) Foundation and a law student at Radboud University, alongside her work as a senior buyer for the Dutch government. Reunited with her Korean family since 1993, her advocacy focuses on political lobbying and legal action to hold institutions accountable. She works toward legislation that addresses the rights and needs of adoptees and their descendants, centering repair, recovery, and the end of intercountry adoption.

is a sociocultural anthropologist and Professor of Anthropology and Asian American Studies at University of California, Irvine. She specializes in kinship, human/nonhuman ecologies, migration, and the senses, with a regional focus on contemporary South Korea. She is the author of two award-winning books, "Adopted Territory: Transnational Korean Adoption and the Politics of Belonging" (2010) and "Making Peace with Nature: Ecological Encounters Along the Korean DMZ" (2022), both of which were published by Duke University Press. She is also the co-editor, with environmental historians David Fedman and Albert Park, of "Forces of Nature: New Perspectives on Korean Environments" (Cornell University Press, 2023).

is a Korean adoptee to Denmark and an adoptee rights activist with a main focus on Danish policy. She has worked closely with media, policymakers, and activists in Denmark to highlight the abuses of the transnational adoption system and seek justice for adoptees and their families. In 2022, she was instrumental in establishing the claim of human rights violations in adoption from South Korea before the South Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Jane Mejdahl is an alumna of the Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University.

has a PhD in History and Civilization from the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. His thesis “A Scandinavian Way of Adoption?” (2024) is a comparative historical study of transnational adoption in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden during the late half of the 20th century. He is also the author of the article “A Great Desire for Children: The Beginning of Transnational Adoption in Denmark and Norway during the 1960’s”, (2020) published in the open-access journal Genealogy as part of its special issue “Transnational Families: Europe and the World”.

(b. 1980, Seoul) is a writer and translator who lives in Copenhagen. (S)he is the author of several books including "Find Holger Danske (Find Holger Dane)" and "HUN ER VRED – Et vidnesbyrd om transnational adoption (SHE IS ANGRY – A testimony of transnational adoption)". Her/His latest book "TOLK (My Interpreter)" is a novel about love, family, language barriers and queerness. Langvad has received many awards for her/his work such as the Montana’s Literature Prize. (S)he has translated works by Kim Hyesoon, Gertrude Stein & Alice B. Toklas and Max Frisch.

is Professor at Centre for Gender Studies, University of Stavanger. Her research is focused on the biopolitics of adoption and child removals in the Nordic region. Her work has been published in journals such as NORA – Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Studies, Social Politics, Racial and Ethnic Studies, GLQ, and Cultural Studies.

is a Korean adoptee, community organizer, and Kaospilot dedicated to building spaces of solidarity, care, and resistance across borders. While living in Korea, they were an active member of Adoptee Solidarity Korea (ASK), and are a founding member of Adoptionspolitisk Forum, a Danish adoptee-led association. Based in Copenhagen, they initiated QTIBIPOC initiatives and work as a Green Chef, weaving food, sustainability, and justice. Their work centers collective memory, transnational kinship, and adoptee-led organizing, exploring how adoptees and racialized communities build power, challenge dominant narratives, and create transformative spaces grounded in healing and political solidarity.

has a Ph.D. in Korean studies and is an associate professor in intercultural education and a senior lecturer in intercultural studies at Karlstad University in Sweden where he also teaches comparative literature and gender studies. He has been engaged with Korean adoption studies and critical adoption studies for many years as well as with Swedish critical race and whiteness studies focusing on among others Asians in Sweden and Swedish anti-Asian racism.

is a public commentator, interdisciplinary performing artist, and trained method actor. She has worked for many years as a freelance performer and actor. In 2024, she received the Zola Prize for her civil courage, particularly for her longstanding critique of Norway’s international adoption system. She is currently working on her first feature documentary, which explores the emotional and legal aftermath of reuniting with her biological family. Unlike mainstream reunion narratives, Uma’s film continues beyond the initial meeting, documenting her search for truth and her legal battle against the Norwegian state in pursuit of justice and accountability.

is an assistant professor (Associate Senior Lecturer) at the Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies at Lund University. Her book project, "Governing Care: Professional Social Work and the Making of the International Adoption Industry in Cold War South Korea", investigates the emergence of one of the world’s largest international adoption programs through the lens of professional social work. Koo earned her PhD from the University of Tübingen. Before joining Lund, she was the SBS Korean Studies Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University and a Korea Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Irvine.