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June Hee Kwon (New York University): Forbidden Homeland: Divided Belonging on China-Korea Border
Wednesday, 8 November 2017,  4:30pm -  6:00pm

Location: Brower Commons Room A 

 

Abstract: This talk explores the old Korean Chinese communist party members' re-articulation and re-remembering of the traumatic ethnic past and ethnic politics in the wake of the Korean Wind--the massive transnational migration from Yanbian, the Korean Chinese autonomous prefecture (China) to the former enemy homeland, South Korea. The ethnographic analysis is twofold. First, I examine the influence of the Korean Wind, a unique type of economic reform and open economy that Korean Chinese have experienced as an ethnic minority, in destabilizing and reconfiguring their ethnic identity. Second, I analyze the divided sense of belonging of these Korean Chinese Communists as they discuss transnational migration to Korea as an economic phenomenon while remaining politically faithful to socialism and China. I argue that the construction of divided belonging is a Korean Chinese effort to reconcile their ethnic place in contemporary "Yanbian socialism" as it is buffeted by the Korean Wind. 

 

Korea Lecture Series Nov8 1