In Japan the number of “Special Permanent Residents”—most of whom are of Korean descent, the so-called “Zainichi”—is declining according to government statistics. Does this mean Koreans living in Japan are becoming Japanese? This volume presents a compelling sociological analysis of Korean colonial migrants’ and their descendants’ politics of self-identification and their ongoing struggle for social … [Read More]
Booklist: Minorities and migrants
Impossible Speech: The Politics of Representation in Contemporary Korean Literature and Film

In what ways can or should art engage with its social context? Authors, readers, and critics have been preoccupied with this question since the dawn of modern literature in Korea. Advocates of social engagement have typically focused on realist texts, seeing such works as best suited to represent injustices and inequalities by describing them as … [Read More]
Borderland Dreams: The Transnational Lives of Korean Chinese Workers

In Borderland Dreams June Hee Kwon explores the trajectory of the “Korean dream” that has fueled the massive migration of Korean Chinese workers from the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in northeast China to South Korea since the early 1990s. Charting the interplay of bodies, money, and time, the ethnography reveals how these migrant workers, in … [Read More]
Belonging in a House Divided: The Violence of the North Korean Resettlement Process

Belonging in a House Divided chronicles the everyday lives of resettled North Korean refugees in South Korea and their experiences of violence, postwar citizenship, and ethnic boundary making. Through extensive ethnographic research, Joowon Park documents the emergence of cultural differences and tensions between Koreans from the North and South, as well as new transnational kinship … [Read More]
Redefining Multicultural Families in South Korea: Reflections and Future Directions

Redefining Multicultural Families in South Korea provides an in-depth look at the lives of families in Korea that include immigrants. Ten original chapters in this volume, written by scholars in multiple social science disciplines and covering different methodological approaches, aim to reinvigorate contemporary discussions about these multicultural families. Specially, the volume expands the scope of … [Read More]
Here Comes the Flood: Perspectives of Gender, Sexuality, and Stereotype in the Korean Wave

This collection breaks down the stereotypes often expected of Korean popular culture, specifically examining issues of gender, sexuality, and stereotype in a variety of cultural products including K-pop, K-drama, and cover dancing through the lens of how “Koreanness” can be defined. A diverse range of of contributors showcase how Hallyu, or the Korean Wave, began … [Read More]
Movie Minorities: Transnational Rights Advocacy and South Korean Cinema

From the publisher’s website: Rights advocacy has become a prominent facet of South Korea’s increasingly transnational motion picture output, especially following the 1998 presidential inauguration of Kim Dae-jung, a former political prisoner and victim of human rights abuses who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000. Today it is not unusual to see a big-budget … [Read More]
Rights Claiming in South Korea

From the publisher’s website: Although rights-based claims are diversifying and opportunities and resources for claims-making have improved, obtaining rights protections and catalysing social change in South Korea remain challenging processes. This volume examines how different groups in South Korea have defined and articulated grievances and mobilized to remedy them. It explores developments in the institutional … [Read More]
Turning toward Edification: Foreigners in Chosŏn Korea

From the publisher’s website: Turning toward Edification discusses foreigners in Korea from before the founding of Chosŏn in 1392 until the mid-nineteenth century. Although it has been common to describe Chosŏn Korea as a monocultural and homogeneous state, Adam Bohnet reveals the considerable presence of foreigners and people of foreign ancestry in Chosŏn Korea as well … [Read More]
The Road to Multiculturalism in South Korea: Ideas, Discourse, and Institutional Change in a Homogenous Nation-State

From the publisher’s website: This book aims to capture the complicated development of Korea from monoethnic to multicultural society, challenging the narrative of “ethnonational continuity” in Korea through a discursive institutional approach. At a time when immigration is changing the face of South Korea and an increasingly diverse society becomes empirical fact, this doesn’t necessarily … [Read More]
Newcomers and Global Migration in Contemporary South Korea: Across National Boundaries

From the publisher’s website: Newcomers and Global Migration in Contemporary South Korea: Across National Boundaries examines the intersections of race, class, gender and inequalities in global migration in contemporary South Korea. The contributors explore South Korean migration policies and study diverse migrants living and working in South Korea as low-wage undocumented workers, refugees, Korean returnees, migrant … [Read More]
Chaoxianzu Entrepreneurs in Korea: Searching for Citizenship in the Ethnic Homeland

From the publisher’s website: This book explores the nature of the state-citizen societal relationship in Korea during the transition to neoliberalism, through the lenses of class and nationalism. Examining the process by which a new class, Korean Chinese entrepreneurs, emerged from Korean Chinese enclaves in South Korea and quickly became a leading group within those … [Read More]
Queer Korea

From the publisher’s website: Since the end of the nineteenth century, the Korean people have faced successive waves of foreign domination, authoritarian regimes, forced dispersal, and divided development. Throughout these turbulent times, “queer” Koreans were ignored, minimized, and erased in narratives of their modern nation, East Asia, and the wider world. This interdisciplinary volume challenges … [Read More]
Gender and Class in Contemporary South Korea: Intersectionality and Transnationality

From the publisher’s website: This volume of essays by leading critical scholars examines gender and class in twenty-first-century South Korea from a transnational and intersectional perspective. Although gender and class have been central concerns in research on Korea for some time, studies have primarily focused on the role of gender and class in South Korea’s … [Read More]
Korea and the World: New Frontiers in Korean Studies

From the publisher’s website: This edited volume brings together a set of essays exploring the global dimensions of Korea’s recent history and politics by a group of the most talented young scholars. Essays in the volume seek to answer two interrelated questions: How have international developments impacted Korea? And how has Korea in turn influenced … [Read More]
Communication, Digital Media, and Popular Culture in Korea: Contemporary Research and Future Prospects

From the publisher’s website: In recent decades, Korean communication and media have substantially grown to become some of the most significant segments of Korean society. Since the early 1990s, Korea has experienced several distinctive changes in its politics, economy, and technology, which are directly related to the development of local media and culture. Korea has … [Read More]