• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.494-513
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• 2013

In this study, a transnational social space which emerges in a rural village of the northern Vietnam called 'Korean Village' is analyzed. The immigrant women of whom the spouses are Korean were forming transnational network with family members through which frequent and active communications took place. At the same time materialistic exchanges were occurring by means of remittance. Like most rural areas where up-to-date life patterns co-exist with outdated ones, the studied region was turning into a transnational social space under the influence of indigenous locallity, culture and other economic factors. Women were found to play a virtual role as resonator in practicing the transnational activity of migration. With the migration routes getting more and more solidified, the evolution of the transnational social space and the role of resonator, the form of transnational migration which makes involved young women look like a sacrifice is ceaselessly expanding around a specific region. This is noticeable because a rural village seemingly far away from internationalization is not only becoming the transnational social space but also a stage of its evolution.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.295-314
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• 2010

The paper attempts to balance the discourses of transnational spaces that have focused on de-territorialization, by emphasizing that transnational spaces are maintained also through re-territorialization. Reviewing the literature of transnational social fields, translocality, multicultural spaces and transnational places, I aim to show the way the main issues from the literature help understand an actually existing transnational space, Little Mania in Daehangno, Seoul. I specifically address the dialectic relation between de-territorialization and re-territorialization, multi-scalar networks, and hybridity of multicultural spaces in interpreting the weekend enclave of Filipinos in Seoul. I argues that Little Manila is a grounded translocality operating through multi-scaled networks of various actors. Furthermore, it is not a unified space where one dominant Filipino identity stands out. Different Filipinos and Filipinas constitute the space imagining different homes. It is also a multicultural space open to other minorities, which suggests the possibility of alternative spatial politics based on co-presence of different 'Others'.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.616-634
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• 2009

Criticizing the existing social science approaches to transnational migration for their ignorance of spatial perspectives and the resultant limits in the understanding of the concrete processes of international migration and settlement, this paper aims to examine how spatial perspectives and geographical epistemology can positively contribute to the understanding and conceptualization of transnational migration. In particular, it emphasizes that the processes of transnational migration cannot be solely understood in terms of 1) global capitalist restructuring and economic rationality, 2) the impacts of deterritoralized transnational networks, or 3) the operation of immigration regimes constructed at the national scale. Alternatively, this paper argues that the conceptualization of 'transnational space', which is based on the understanding of the socio-spatial dimensions - that is, place, territory, scale and networks - that affect the processes of transnational migration, could significantly contribute to the understanding of the transnational migration.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.42 no.2 s.119
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• pp.196-217
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• 2007

During the last decade, Los Angeles Koreatown experienced unprecedented changes transforming it from an immigrant ethnic enclave into a transnational economic space. Alongside of the city government's redevelopment plans and local Korean Americans' grass-root efforts to regenerate Koreatown, transnational Korean actors have aggressively invested in property as well as business sectors. However, despite these multi-scaled geographic transitions, Koreatown remains one of the poorest and most crime-infested inner-city communities in the City of Los Angeles. This paper, based on a 'place-based' bottom-up approach, investigates contradictory geographies of Koreatown in which multi-scaled network of hegemonic transnational, urban and local development actors has developed representational, unlived economies. This research points out that the recent urban regeneration of Koreatown has not only excluded but also exploited local community members such as transnational Korean/Latino workers in the area. This paper conclusively suggests that the sustainable future of Koreatown's development would stem from place-based community consciousness that crisscrosses racial and ethnic boundaries.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.1-22
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• 2017

This paper is to consider conceptually a formation of food-networks and border-crossing of transnational marriage migrant households on the basis of actor-network theory, and to analyze empirical data on the issues collected by interview with marriage migrant women living around Daegu, S.Korea. Some research results can be argued as follows: First, food can be seen, not as a single material object, but as a multiple and hybrid network of human and nonhuman (material and institutional) actors, in which activities of food cooking and eating are regulated by and (re)construct social relations and placeness of households. Secondly, food-networks in marriage migrant households implement relationships of micro-power (and attachment) in the process of its (re)formation, and hence the food-network, it can be argued, is a field of power in which conflicts and compromising around food cooking and eating are intersecting each others. Thirdly, food-networks in marriage migrant households in both their origin country and in the Korean home are not only affected by macro natural and social environments but also by micro placeness of the households, both of which constitute the food-networks and operate in relations with other actors in the netwroks. Finally, food-networks in marriage migrant households reflect multiple and multi-scalar spatial mobility and placeness of transnational food culture, through which they express topologically 'fluid space' and 'absent presence', in which marriage migrant women can (or cannot) conduct social and cultural border-crossing.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.64-88
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• 2010

Rapidly increasing transnational migration can be seen as a typical process which has proceeded under macro-contexts of socio-spatial characters of origin and destination country and their relationships, shaped with global uneven regional development in the process of glocalization and development of transportation and communication on the global level. In order to consider macro-contexts of transnational migration, this paper emphasizes the concept of multicultural space and some key elements implied in it, that is, place, territory, network, scale (suggested by Jessop et al.) and spatial flow and difference. As results of questionnaire analysis of foreign immigrants' recognition of macro-contexts, this paper suggests some findings: that is, a high level of recognition of all types of foreign immigrants on global changes, the most negative recognition of migrant workers among 4 types of foreign immigrants on economic and social conditions of their origin country, a positive recognition of people in all regions of their origin (except few countries such as Japan) on international migration, and a low level of their recognition in all types on S. Korea's characters as their destination country.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.131-143
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to understand the living culture of transnational married women and to analyze the out door play of children in their hometown. The data was collected through observation from 27th June to 7th July 2008 in Jian, Jilin Province China. The children's play and lifestyles were observed, and data pertaining to the culture of the people were collected by a teacher and staff. We also visited the residents for housing information. The results are given below. 1. They dressed in Korean clothes on festive days and the boys put on a hood. They had eating habits which included cooking for themselves or buying semi-manufactured goods but did not use, instant food. The housing habits involved a combination of cooking and heating by Korean floor heating system(Ondol). They utilized outdoor space to grow vegetables. Those with a fulltime job(teacher) preferred to live in an apartment but an apartment was too expensive. Public utility charges and traffic expenses were cheap. 2. The main festive days are the lunar New Year's Day and Chuseok. The children returned home and enjoyed the festive day with their parents. The language used are Korean language and Chinese. Some Korean words and phrases in Jian Joseonjok have different meanings as compared to how they are used in Korea. A capping ceremony did not to celebrate becoming an adult from an adolescent. Couples performed a wedding ceremony at a wedding hall attended by their parents and invited relatives from both families. The relatives gave the couple a wedding gift. They did not go on a wedding trip as it was not affordable but instead spent their wedding night at a hotel in this culture. When someone dies, they bury the body after cremation. They perform a memorial service for three years on the birthday of the departed. They have a banquet on the 60th birthdays with their relatives and neighbours and are typically presented with a carp for longevity. 3. They understand capitalism and therefore send their children to school to improve their social position. The Korean and Chinese languages are required subjects in school. The students choose a second language(English or Russian). They prefer English class but at the time of this study an English class was not offered at the school in Jian Joseonjok. Therefore the children entered a Chinese school. 4. The children play outdoor games such as Y$\acute{a}$o J$\grave{i}\bar{a}$(要家), X$\grave{i}$ang g$\grave{i}$(象棋), T$\grave{i}\grave{a}$o p$\acute{i}$ j$\grave{i}$n(r)(跳皮節), D$\grave{o}$uch ing g$\grave{u}$n 凍冷根, B$\bar{e}$i B$\bar{e}$i 背背, and soccer. They play games according to the season.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.26
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• pp.249-272
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• 2012

Diaspora studies has become one of the fastest growing field in the humanities over the past several decades, and the use of term diaspora has been widening to include almost any population on the move. Diaspora literature not only mirrors but actively incorporates this new notion of diaspora with characters "at the threshold" navigating new territories and identities. Querying how diaspora studies intersects with theatre and performance, this paper attempts to probe how recent Korean American drama parallels and promotes diaspora studies' radical departure from traditional notions of identities and territories. For this purpose, this essay 1) examines theoretical affinities between diaspora studies and performance studies 2) investigates how Sung Rno's plays, Cleveland Raining and wAve, explore and embody multiple and evolving meanings of Korean diaspora on the stage 3) examines how theatre can create the third space that transcends both Korean and American nationalism and 4) speculates possibilities of reframing Asian American Studies as Asian diaspora studies. Korean American characters in Rno's play redirect diasporic identities, as their concern gradually moves from "where I come from" to "where I go to." Instead of remaining in the dark as a mere spectator, both Rno and his characters choose to be 'on' the stage where they can imagine, perform, and realize (however temporarily) "unimaginable community" by confronting their own social, political, and cultural ambivalence. Stage, the threshold between reality and fiction, Korea and America, and past and future, becomes their true 'home' where they incubate and precipitate "nation in transformation" that Yan Haiping argues for as "another transnational."

• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.85-125
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• 2014

This paper explores what we call 'the problem of undone social science' by examining the lack of interests in the social, ethical, and legal issues of synthetic biology among social scientists in Korea. This new field of science, which has emerged in the twenty-first century with the promise of solving future problems of energy, food, and disease in the world, has also created a considerable degree of anxiety over the issues of bioethics, biosafety, and biosecurity. From its beginning, therefore, researchers of synthetic biology in Europe and the U.S. have sought to engage social scientists in their projects. Yet scientists and social scientists in Korea have shown no sign of working together to deal with both potential benefits and risks of synthetic biology. Why this silence? What strategic moves would be needed to overcome the structural barrier for their collaboration? Surveying the diverse methodologies developed during and after ELSI (ethical, legal, social implications) experiments, this paper aims to provide three suggestions that might make possible mutually profitable and continuously stimulating dialogues between the two worlds of science and social science: first, institutionalize the ELSI studies on any newly emerging science and technology of concern; second, explore diverse post-ELSI methodologies experimented elsewhere and develop ones that might be applicable best to the Korean situation; and third and perhaps most important, create an intellectual space and a lawful protection for social scientists to exercise their research freedom at the reasonable level and receive a fair review by their peers, not solely by funding agencies and scientific organizations.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.540-556
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• 2006

The purpose of this paper is to analyze a process of formation of an ethnic community in the global era, taking an example of foreign workers in Igok-Dong, Dalseo-gu, Taegu. Previous studies suggest that playing a role as a hub of culture, resources and ethnic networks an ethnic community becomes an imagined space where its members can feel "us". Through this imagined space, ethnic people communicate and exchange information with each other and establish transnational linkages between their origin and destination countries or the third countries. In my research in Igok-Dong it was observed that ethnic shops had become the centers of the community of foreign workers and helped them connect with their own ethnic people from wider areas than their residence. Partly because of such networks exclusively focused on their own ethnics, there was little connection developed between foreign workers and locals. A social distance between the two parties may turn into antagonism as the ethnic community grows in number. Since it is foreseen that demands for foreign workers will continue to rise in Igok-Dong it is necessary to seek ways to achieve a more inclusive and harmonious multi-ethnic society for both foreign workers and locals.