AbstractThis thesis analyzes how adult children of transnational families who are in theiremerging adulthood of 20s and 30s imagine their family ties in the process of making,unmaking and remaking relationships with migrant parents. The adult children of theglobal split family express their desire to continue their imagined and aspiring family tiesthrough 'emotional practices.' The researcher introduces the concept of transnationalaffect in order to illuminate the changes in emotional relationships between adult childrenand migrant parents and their dynamics as the children emerge into adulthood. The researcher interviewed five adult children of transnational family residing inKorea from March to November, 2017. The outcomes of the research are as follows. First, the thesis examines the conditions and aspirations that pushed the transnationalfamilies to migration and global spit family formation through the lens of adult children.All families who participated in the study experienced migration in the wake of the 1997financial crisis. The financial crisis triggered labor migration and incorporated many intothe global survival circuit. The migration experiences of parents have broughttransnational family members with new aspirations and situations, and this desirecontinues to separate the family across border even after the families have acquiredrelative socioeconomic stability. The thesis argues that the role of 'mother' based ontraditional familial division of labor is pivotal in constructing and maintainingtransnational family ties. Children experienced deficiency in care and affection especiallywhen the migrating parent was mother. This shows that family connection is sustainedbased on the care labor of the mother in the family, and that the expectation of the role ofmotherhood functions independently of physical distance. Second, transnational family members exchange familial interest and relationship viaregular visits and frequent contacts, and establish mutual trust through continuouseconomic support. Frequent contacts or visits allow emotions to circulate between adultchildren and migrant parents. The adult children interpret these as emotional practices that allow them to 'do family' according to how they imagine a family or what they aspirein the family relationship. Remittances, in particular, serve as a symbol of the family'sshared experience and the mutual trust despite the distance. The fact that childrenunderstood parental absence differently in childhood and adulthood according to thesocio-economic class of migrant parents reaffirm this tendency. Adult children tend toidentify the factors that affect their relationship with parents with 'emotions', butrecognize that their emotional practices hinge on their continued dependence on themigrant parents' socio-economic resources. Third, as the left-behind children of transnational families emerge into adulthood,how they recognize and utilize their own family's global householding changes. Theeconomic wealth and socio-cultural capital of migrant parents are appropriated by adultchildren to achieve various markers of adulthood such as the education and career. Adultchildren reconfigure their relationships with migrant parents in the process of reproducingfamily's social and economic resources and class. In the past, they experienced emotionaland care deprivation due to the absence of parents. The adult children, however, nowreconstruct their role and their relationship with parents with the narrative ofunderstanding and accepting transnational family structure by actively participating intransnational family making to sustain the socioeconomic outcome attributed to the sameabsence. They pity their aging parents, but continue to dependent on the parents'economic and emotional resources. The previous discussion of Korean transnational family has been centered on thestudy of the so-called 'geese family' which are child-centered education migration ofmiddle class Korean families, and on that of the global householding led by migrantworkers and marriage immigrants to Korea. This thesis is significant in that it introducesthe various class aspiration of Korean transnational families and places adult children,who do not appear in transnational family discourse, as an important actor oftransnational family building. Its research could confirm that transnational familiesfunction as a transnational social field where gender and class intersect, and that transnational affect operates in resolving the instability and conflict inherent in familyrelations and in consolidating family ties. This thesis, therefore, aims to analyze theintersection of class, gender and affect incorporated in Korean transnational familyexperience.

Key terms: transnational family, transnational affect, adult children, migrant parent, left- behind children, global householding, migration