Biography
I am a PhD candidate funded by KFAS(Korean Foundation for Advanced Studies). I completed my Master’s in Anthropology at Seoul National University, and I also hold a BA in Politics and Anthropology from Seoul National University.
Research
My ongoing research focuses on repatriation movements in divided Korea, mainly working with two groups: “Unconverted Long-term Prisoners,” who seek repatriation to the North, and “Abductees,” who seek repatriation to the South. I am exploring how these people navigate their belongings under incompatible perspectives of the two Koreas on their nationality. Additionally, I am interested in how these groups are positioned as counterparts in exchanges between the two Koreas and what this reveals about anthropological understandings of social relations constituted through exchanges.
This project stems from my Master’s thesis, which is based on fieldwork conducted with an administrative body in South Korea that ostensibly governs the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. As this community consists of “displaced people” from these regions, I examined how practices of kinship intertwine with statehood and how nostalgia entails prefiguration.
I also worked with elderly “Camptown women,” who were involved in the sex industry in U.S. military camptowns in South Korea, primarily during the 1970s and 1980s. Engaging with anthropological discourse on representation, I co-authored a book that combines video art and experimentally arranged texts.
Research Interests: Self; alterity; reciprocity; anthropological theory; nation; two Koreas; the Cold War
Publications
Books
Forthcoming. Pretending to be reunified: the Virtual temporality of Displaced people’s community in Korea, Seoul: Maybooks.
2020. Youngmi, Jiny, Yunseon: Beyond Yanggongju, Daughter of the Nation, or Victims of State Atrocities[영미 지니 윤선]. Seoul: Seohaemunjib. (Co-authored with Eunjin Lee and Minju Jeon) (ISBN: 9791190893305)
2018. IMO: Representation of US Camptown Women in Pyeongtaek [IMO: 평택 기지촌 여성 재현]. Seoul: Differance. (Co-authored with Eunjin Lee and Minju Jeon) (ISBN: 9791196600709)
Articles
2016. “The Movement of Legislation & Jurisdiction and the Production of US Camptown Women as Legal Subjects['기지촌 여성'에 대한 입법·사법운동과 법적 주체 생산],” Public Interest and Human Rights. 16: 159-201.
2019. “Representing the Failure of Representation: Listening to the Testimonies of US Camptown Women[재현의 실패를 드러내는 재현],” Feminist Web Journal Ilda. (www.ildaro.com/8525)
2023. “In the confines of inter-Korean relations [남북 관계의 굴레에서],” Hanpyun. Seoul: Minumsa. 12: 127-146. (ISBN:9788937491634)
Book Reviews
2020. “Michael Taussig, Mimesis and Alterity: A Particular History of the Senses[낯선 곳에서 타자와 뒤섞이다],” Korean Cultural Anthropology. 53(2): 247-259. (Co-authored with Jihye Kim, Sungkyu Son and Kyeongseon Choi)
Translations to Korean
2022. Eduardo Viveiros de Castro. The Inconstancy of the Indian Soul: The Encounter of Catholics and Cannibals in 16-century Brazil[인디오의 변덕스러운 혼]. Seoul: Podobat. (co-translated with Eunjeong Cha et al.)
