This volume examines the socio-cultural aspects of transnational mobility of the Korean diaspora across the globe, spanning countries such as Japan, the Philippines, Germany, the US, and the UK. The contributors explore gendered migration, social inclusion and exclusion in homeland and hostland, embodied multiple subjectivities and belonging in historical and contemporary contexts, migrants’ work and family, ethnic media consumption, information and communication technology (ICT) in transnational mobility, ethnic return migration, and marriage migration. This work is a strong interdisciplinary and trans-regional study, combining various disciplines such as sociology, gender studies, anthropology, history, theater studies, media and communication studies, and Asian studies.

Through a series of empirical studies, this edited volume examines socio-cultural aspects of transnational mobility in and out of Korea as well as the process in which overseas Koreans, returnees, and marriage migrants in South Korea gain agency and negotiate multiple identities.

By examining privileged and highly skilled Asian migrants, such as international students who acquire legal permanent residency in the United States, this book registers and traces these transnational figures as racialized transnational elites and illuminates the intersectionality and reconfiguration of race, class, ethnicity, and nationality. Using in-depth interviews with Korean international students in New York City and Koreans in South Korea as a case study, this book argues that racialized transnational elites are embedded in racial and ethnic dynamics in the United States as well as in class and nationalist conflicts with non-migrant co-ethnics in the sending country. Sung-Choon Park further argues that strategic responses to the local, social dynamics shape transnational practices such as diaspora-building, transfer of knowledge, conversion of cultural capital, and cross-border communication about race, causing heterogeneous social consequences in both societies.

Through a critical examination of the Korean diaspora in transnational contexts as a case study, Korean Digital Diaspora: Transnational Social Movements and Diaspora Identity unmasks the process of how people of the diaspora have built social interactions and communication with others online, how they have orchestrated social movements, and finally, how they have narrated and reshaped their diaspora identities in their everyday lives. Utilizing an ethnographical approach, including in-depth interviews, participant observation, and a field study in New York City and Philadelphia, Hojeong Lee delineates how digital media technology has expanded into a new form of diaspora, digital diaspora, within the Korean diaspora community, and how it has mobilized the social movements of Korean diaspora members. Accordingly, Korean diaspora members have begun to imagine their community as a transnational global diaspora. Korean Digital Diaspora concludes with an analysis of how the changed attitudes of diaspora members have also influenced how they define themselves and how they are reshaping their diaspora identities. This multi-site, three-year study reveals the nexus of media, individuals, and society, highlighting the transnational social movements of diaspora members.

Since their arrival in the 1960s, Korean immigrants in Argentina have been massively involved in the garment industry. Nevertheless, despite their decades-long concentration in the same sector, over time they have reshaped their motivations and business styles throughout the twists and turns of the host country’s junctures. Applying rigorous immigrant entrepreneurship theories, yet wary of orthodoxies, Kim examines the intriguing paths which Korean entrepreneurs have taken to develop their businesses in the Argentine garment industry amidst complex, frantically volatile social and economic circumstances, and argues for the application of a new approach that combines existing theories with historically contextual perspectives. This unique case study on Korean immigrant entrepreneurship in Latin America represents a significant milestone in the fields of migration and Korean studies and a substantial contribution to bridging the gap between the North, where such inquiries abound, and the South, where the history, settlement, and current status of Korean immigrants have been notoriously under-examined.

The 1.5 Generation Korean Diaspora: A Comparative Understanding of Identity, Culture, and Transnationalism provides insights into the contemporary experiences of 1.5 generation Korean immigrants around the world. By exploring Korean emigrants’ lives in host locations such as Los Angeles, Boston, Toronto, Auckland, Argentina, and Deluth, the contributors study the inherent complexities of being a 1.5 generation immigrant and show that 1.5 generation immigrants are a unique group that deserves further study. The contributors analyze key issues, such as the 1.5 generation’s identity negotiations, their occupational trajectories, the role of ethnic communities and institutions, changing values of love and marriage, the cultural tension involved in parenthood, their health needs and services, and ethnic and transnational entrepreneurship.

Korean Wild Geese Families: Gender, Family, Social, and Legal Dynamics of Middle-Class Asian Transnational Families in North America explores the experiences of middle-class Korean transnational families, whose mothers and children migrate abroad for children’s education while fathers remain in Korea and economically support their families, throughout transnational separation: before separation, during separation, and after reunification. It discusses the themes of (1) changes in wild geese parents’ relative gender statuses, housework patterns, and spousal relationships; (2) changes in mothering/fathering practices and intergenerational relationships; and (3) wild geese families’ settlement and integration in the host societies and re-adaptation to Korea after family reunification. Se Hwa Lee interviewed mothers in both the United States and Canada, as well as fathers in Korea, to compare the effects of immigration policies between the two countries in North America and present gender-balanced explanations. Se Hwa Lee also sheds light on Asian documented immigrants’ hardships and different degrees of empowerment and incorporation in the host societies according to legal status, employment, additional education, and co-ethnic community membership. This book offers readers valuable venues to enhance their understanding of increasingly diverse transnational families in North America.