• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.57 no.1
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• pp.147-170
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• 2011

This paper elucidates the characteristics of transnational adoption, estimates the possibility of beyond-borders identity of transnational adoptees, and tries to analyze Jane Jeong Trenka's The Language of Blood in its context. Though it has been regarded as one of the most humanitarian ways of helping orphans and poor children of the world, transnational adoption, a one-way flow of children from poor Asian countries to rich white countries, has been operated under the market logic between countries. Transnational adoptees, who had been abandoned and forced to be taken away from their birth mother, and later, to fulfill the desire of white parents for a perfect family, perform an ideological labor, serving to make the heterogeneous nuclear family complete. Korean transnational adoptees, forced to transcend the borders of nation, culture, and ethnicity, experience racial conflict and alienation in white adoptive family and society. Their diaspora experience of violent dislocation creates frustration and confusion in establishing their identity as a whole being. When they return to Korea to find their birth mother and their true identity, Korean adoptees, however, are faced with other obstructing issues, such as language problem, culture conflict, and maternal nationalism. Finally, Korean transnational adoptees reject Korean nationalism discourse based on blood, and try to redefine themselves as beyond-borders subjectivities with new and fluid identities. Jane Jeong Trenka's The Language of Blood, an autobiographical novel based on her experiences as a transnational adoptee, represents a Korean adopted girl's personal, cultural, and racial conflict within her white adoptive family, and questions the image of benevolent white mother and the myth of multiculturalism. The novel further represents Jane's return to Korea to find out her true identity, and shows Jane's disappointment and alienation in her birth country due to her ignorance of language and culture. Returning to USA again, and trying to be reconciled with her American mother, Jane shows the promise of accepting her new identity capable of transcending the borders, and thus, the possibility of enlarging the category of belonging.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.73-95
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• 2010

European integration is characterized by the development of a transnational European identity, which is considered an integral part of the process. Northeast Asia has no similar projects to address the common identity issue, although cooperation is highly valued there as well. Identity and cooperation both require interdisciplinary approaches combining social psychology, international relations theory and international economics. This article considers the problems of applying existing studies on cooperation and identity as well as the European experience (with the Baltic Sea example) to the case of Northeast Asia. Transnational identities promote cooperation beyond the limits of rationalistic game theory, if countries of the region can define their identities and interests, commit to common goals, create shared discourses and reach a balance between nationalism and internationalism. In view of proposed negotiations on the free trade area between China, Korea and Japan and ongoing discussions about a possibility of introducing a common currency (ACU) it can be crucial to consider the importance of identity building as early as possible, before regional integration meets a stumbling block of egoistic rationality that is a problem in any model of cooperation.

• Korea and Global Affairs
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.109-128
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to consider the appearance of the global generation transnational identity and forming process, existence aspect, functional role, and on the actuating mechanism, and etc. The results about the transnational identity of Diaspora and diversity are as follows. First, as to the transnational identity, the emigrants had been being determined by the relation with the accreditation and how type had been deal with one's decision about the self-identify. Second, the individual experience of the emigrant, interaction, and unstable status political support etc. various factors were combined and the diversity of the Diaspora identity showed. Third, the identity concept had been performing the function in the more expanded meaning called the nation and nation through the continuous meaning expansion than the individual as the national ideology. Fourth, the transnational identity of Korean-Chinese was specialized into the nation identity, double identity, and 'the identity of the third' etc. Fifth, the transnational identity of the Nikkei-Brazilian appeared for Japanese identity, Brazilian identity, and Nikkeijin identity etc. in Japan. In conclusion, the Transnational identity of the Diaspora is reproducing the identity of the emigrant, it suggests through the differentiation in the settlement and exclusion.

• American Studies
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.83-97
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• 2020

"Behind a Mask" (1866) marks the new direction of Louisa May Alcott's artistic and personal life. Her European trip solidified her identity as a mature woman, most importantly as a mature American woman, one whose independence from Victorian stereotypes would, from now on, make her fortune and fame. Her sensational stories, especially "Behind a Mask," would tell truths that readers recognized but had rarely seen written. These truths would free them, and the author herself, to explore their talents as individuals. Henceforth, Alcott would embody the successful American artistic entrepreneur as one who shed the European domination of false titles and inherited wealth. These motifs of the transnational connection pervade the story, in the form of images and likenesses. Just as Alcott would soon, in two years, reach astonishing financial success with the publication of Little Women, her meteoric ascent parallels America's rise to power in the world's economy, which came about with almost alarming speed after the conclusion of the American Civil War.

• SUVANNABHUMI
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.125-157
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• 2019

It has been widely argued that Area Studies is in a critical condition especially in Australia, Europe and the US. However, in the Southeast Asian region, most especially Indonesia, we are witnessing the rise of Area Studies programs with the establishment of several such programs both in research institutions and universities. In this paper, I will discuss a few examples of Area Studies research on the emerging diasporic connections in Southeast Asia and reflect on the constitution of ethnic networks as "sites" where transnational identities are forged beyond state boundaries. Indeed, transnational movements of people have occurred and continue to happen due to particular events like wars and political turmoil, as well as for economic reasons. Today, we find many diasporic groups, including minorities, in the border areas of Southeast Asian countries and historically, minorities have been known for their movements in mainland Southeast Asia. If previously, the diasporic connections, especially with the homeland, had been very limited or even non-existent, today such connections have emerged across national boundaries. On top of this, economic and social networkings are equally on the rise both within and at transnational levels. It is, therefore, important to discuss the identity of diasporic groups and transnational networkings in the cases of two border areas in Southeast Asia.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.676-694
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• 2012

This paper investigates the regional distribution of female transnational marriage migrants by nationalities in South Korea. In addition, this research explores the regional distribution by nationalities, migration processes, and socioeconomic characteristics of female transnational marriage migrants in Chungcheongbuk-do in South Korea. Regarding the regional distribution of female transnational marriage migrants in South Korea, using location quotient, this study seeks to categorizes cities and counties in South Korea into five groups. Furthermore, using Thomas method, this paper tries to stereotype cities and counties in Chungcheongbuk-do into six groups, in order to identify significant nationalities in each group. The concept of transnationalism refers to the recent phenomenon that transnational social networks are prominent, linking societies at the global scale, as international migration has been rapidly increasing due to the globalization. Transnationalism provides insight into the in-depth understanding of socio-spatial structure of international migrants, transnational social networks, transnational identities, cultural hybridization, and so on.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.14 no.10
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• pp.473-481
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• 2016

This research aims to examine the relationship between the overseas Koreans' return visit for the participation in the National Sports Festival(NSF) and transnational identity negotiation. The subjects for this study were 378 overseas Koreans who took part in the 96th NSF in 2015. The results are as follows; First, the higher the motivation for socializing with others, maintaining a national identity and self-realization, the more the positive experience in the NSF. However, the higher the motivation for releasing stress and helping business, the more the negative experience they have in the NSF. Second, while the higher the motivation for releasing stress and helping business, the stronger the identity with settlement. However, the higher the motivation for maintaining a national identity, the stronger the identity with origin. Third, while the more the negative experience in the NSF, the stronger the identity with settlement. However, the less the negative experience in the NSF, the stronger the identity with origin.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.64 no.4
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• pp.585-600
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• 2018

Over the last three decades, the field of American Studies has increasingly paid attention to transnational approaches in an effort to diversify and expand the field's concerns beyond the narrow sense of the nation-state in today's globalizing world. Yet, the mediation of the transnational requires a careful analysis of the nation that is still in transit. In this context, this essay examines Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick (1851) as a case study that vividly shows how reading American literature and culture through transnationalism not only offers new interpretations of canonical texts, but also helps us to better understand the historical roots and cultural contexts of contemporary issues such as global labor and migration, US citizenship and racial justice. To address the complexity of the text's circulation and reproduction, coupled with US national ideology and cultural conditions, I first turn to the canonization of Melville's Moby-Dick during the Cold War era as a national project and then explore the possibilities of transnational readings by focusing on the politics of race and global capitalism in the nineteenth century whaling industry. In doing so, I argue that critical transnationalism allows readers to keep questioning about their own understanding of race, nation, and cultural identity while remaining attentive to the destructive force of US imperialism and global capitalism in the twenty-first century.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.295-314
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• 2010

The paper attempts to balance the discourses of transnational spaces that have focused on de-territorialization, by emphasizing that transnational spaces are maintained also through re-territorialization. Reviewing the literature of transnational social fields, translocality, multicultural spaces and transnational places, I aim to show the way the main issues from the literature help understand an actually existing transnational space, Little Mania in Daehangno, Seoul. I specifically address the dialectic relation between de-territorialization and re-territorialization, multi-scalar networks, and hybridity of multicultural spaces in interpreting the weekend enclave of Filipinos in Seoul. I argues that Little Manila is a grounded translocality operating through multi-scaled networks of various actors. Furthermore, it is not a unified space where one dominant Filipino identity stands out. Different Filipinos and Filipinas constitute the space imagining different homes. It is also a multicultural space open to other minorities, which suggests the possibility of alternative spatial politics based on co-presence of different 'Others'.

• SUVANNABHUMI
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.1-16
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• 2012

In 2010, nearly thirteen hundred Buddhist monks from all over the world converged on to the small Indonesian resort town of Berastagi to celebrate the inauguration of the Taman AlamLumbini, a replica of Myanmar's most iconic Theravada Buddhist temple, the ShwedagonPaya. Nestled on Christian lands within a predominantly Muslim country, the building of the Taman AlamLumbini marked several years of negotiation amongst various religious communities, local government mediators, and patrons. This study makes a preliminary assessment of the ways in which cultural and historical discourses were used by participants to evoke a sense of transnational connectedness outside the realm of formal bilateral diplomacy. Through particular Buddhist ceremonies, rituals, and imagery, Myanmar sponsors and Indonesian patrons promoted a sense of broad pan-Asianism that linked monks, state officials, and local lay practitioners into a single community. A brief examination of the key speeches during the opening ceremony reveals that national interest and identity were still very much in play.