Making Peace with Nature: Ecological Encounters Along the Korean DMZ (2022, Duke University Press)
Reviewed in American Ethnologist, Anthropological Quarterly, Anthropological Research, Asian Studies Review, Korean Studies Review, Military History, Nature and Culture, Pacific Affairs, and Public Books. Featured on Campaign for the American Reader’s The Page 99 Test and the ASLE Ecocast Podcast (most listened to episode in 2023).
- 2024 James B. Palais Book Prize, Committee on Korean Studies, Association of Asian Studies
Adopted Territory: Transnational Korean Adoptees and the Politics of Belonging (2010, Duke University Press)
Reviewed in Acta Koreana, American Ethnologist, Anthropological Quarterly, Asian Studies Review, Contemporary Sociology, Ethnic and Racial Studies, International Institute for Asian Studies, Journal of American Ethnic History, Journal of Asian Studies, Journal of Asian American Studies, Journal of Ethnic and Racial Studies, Korean Quarterly, Pacific Affairs.
- 2012 James B. Palais Book Prize, Committee on Korean Studies, Association of Asian Studies
- 2012 Social Sciences Book Award, Association of Asian American Studies
Selected Articles and Book Chapters:
- 2019. “Natural-born Aliens: Transnational Adoptees and U.S. Citizenship.” Adoption & Culture 7(2): 257-279. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.26818/adoptionculture.7.2.0257
- 2019. “Metabolic Relations: Korean Red Ginseng and the Ecologies of Modern Life.” How Nature Works: Rethinking Labor on a Troubled Planet. Sarah Besky and Alex Blanchette, eds. SAR Press.
- 2019. “My Folder is Not a Person: Kinship Knowledge, State Power, and the Adoption File.” Invited contribution to the Cambridge Handbook for the Anthropology of Kinship, Sandra Bamford, editor.
- 2017. “Invasive Others and Significant Others: Strange Kinship and Interspecies Ethics Near the Korean Demilitarized Zone” Social Research Journal: An International Quarterly 84(1). https://muse.jhu.edu/article/659231/pdf
- 2016. Toward an Anthropology of Landmines: Rogue Infrastructure and Military Waste in the Korean Demilitarized Zone. Cultural Anthropology 31, no. 2: 162-187. http://dx.doi.org/10.14506/ca31.2.02
- 2016. “Transnational Adoption and Im(Possible) Lives.” In Living and Dying in the Contemporary World: A Compendium. Clara Han and Veena Das, eds. University of California Press.
- 2015. “Beyond Motherlands and Mother Love: Locating Korean Adoptees in Global Korea.” In Multiethnic Korea? Multiculturalism, Migration, and Peoplehood Diversity in Contemporary South Korea. John Lie, ed. University of California Press.
- 2013. “Producing Missing Persons: Korean Adoptee Artists Imagining (Im)Possible Lives.” In War Baby/Love Child: Mixed Race Asian American Art. Wei-Ming Dariotis and Laura Kina, eds. University of Washington Press.
- 2012. “Human Capital: Transnational Korean Adoptees and the Neoliberal Logic of Return.” Journal of Korean Studies 17(2): 299-327.
- 2009. “The Origins of Korean Adoption: Cold War Geopolitics and Intimate Diplomacy.” Working Paper Series (WP 09-09). U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS, Johns Hopkins.
- 2007. “Our Adoptee, Our Alien: Transnational Adoptees as Specters of Foreignness and Family in South Korea.” Anthropological Quarterly 80(2).
- 2003. “Wedding Citizenship and Culture: Korean Adoptees and the Global Family of Korea.” Social Text 74.
- 2001. “Korean Adoptee Auto-Ethnography: Refashioning Self, Family, and Finding Community,” Visual Anthropology Review 16 (1).
Other Publications:
- 2018. “Flyways.” Speaking Volumes Series, edited by Franck Billé. Theorizing the Contemporary, Fieldsights, June 27. https://culanth.org/fieldsights/flyways
- 2018. “Introducing the Ends of Adoption.” Special Issue: The Ends of Korean Adoption. Adoption & Culture 6(2) (with James Jin Kyung Lee).
- 2018. “Introduction: Reflections on Nancy Abelmann’s Legacy.” Journal of Asian Studies 77(4): 945-952 (with Jesook Song).
- 2014. “The Flight of Cranes: Militarized Nature at the North Korea-South Korea Border.” In Asian Environments: Connections across Borders, Landscapes, and Times. Edited by Ursula Münster, Shiho Satsuka, and Gunnel Cederlöf, RCC Perspectives (The Journal of the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society), no. 3, 65-70.
- 2013. “Making Peace with Nature: The Greening of the Korean Demilitarized Zone,” ENGAGEMENT, the blog of the Anthropology and Environment Society of the American Anthropological Association.
- 2013. “Making Peace with Nature: The Greening of the Korean Demilitarized Zone,” ENGAGEMENT, the blog of the Anthropology and Environment Society of the American Anthropological Association. Posted June 26.
- 2012. “Returning Cranes to North Korea.” In “The Ecologic and the
Politic, Nature and the Natural ––A Virtual Symposium Exploring the North Korean Environmental.” Edited by Robert Winstanley-Chesters. SINO-NK: Northeast Asia with a China-North Korea Focus. - 2012. “Returning Cranes to North Korea.” The Ecologic and the Politic, Nature and the Natural ––A Virtual Symposium Exploring the North Korean Environmental” Edited by Robert Winstanley-Chesters. SINO-NK: Northeast Asia with a China-North Korea Focus. Posted September 1.
- 2010. In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee PBS/POV; Web feature on the history of adoptions from South Korea.
Selected Media Appearances
- “An Anthropology of… Landmines.” Podcast: An Anthropology Of…” by Andrew Gilbert. April 9, 2021.
- “Seeing through the Static: A Conversation in Images with Eleana J. Kim.” By Julien Cossette. Visual and New Media Review, Cultural Anthropology website, July 21, 2016.
- “Why a Generation of Adoptees is Returning to South Korea.” By Maggie Jones. New York Times Magazine. January 19, 2015
- Profile of Eleana Kim by Nina Trige Andersen, Information, October 28, 2014. (in Danish).