Penn State Institute for Korean Studies Lecture Series: Book Talk, Young A. Jung, “Korean Kirogi Families: Placemaking, Belonging, and Mothering”

Thursday, October 24, 2024 7:00 PM to 8:15 PM EDT
Online Location

“Korean Kirogi Families: Placemaking, Belonging, and Mothering” explores emplaced transnational families’ dynamics through analyses of social capital, sense of place, belonging, and mothering among the so-called “Korean Kirogi families. ” Drawing mixed methods, including ethnographic fieldwork, in-depth interviews, and textual analyses of media representations and historical documents about migration histories, this book examines kirogi families in a historical and transnational migration context. Kirogifamilies’ emplacement and belonging are constructed by diverse feedback that families receive from sending and host societies and media representations. This book also challenges prevailing assumptions on the relationship between educational choices and class by documenting ethnographic observations that transnational parents’ choices around the residential community and school districts do not necessarily reflect their class background but rather families’ different kinds of social capital in various settings This book argues that these transnational families construct distinct types of belonging, including structural belonging, relational belonging, school district belonging, and narrative belonging.

Young A. Jung’s teaching and research interests are modern Korean literature, transnational migration and media studies, critical Korean cultural studies, and motherhood studies. Jung’s work is interdisciplinary and applies critical theories of cultural studies. Jung’s recent work, Korean Kirogi Families: Placemaking, Belonging, and Mothering (Lexington Books 2024), explores the dynamics of emplaced transnational families through analyses of the categories of social capital, sense of place, sense of belonging, and mothering among so-called “Korean kirogi families. ” Another recent work, Squid Games, Transcultural Fan Parodies: Black and Queer Adaptations, analyzes fans' user-created parody texts on YouTube and their comments reflecting international fans' engagement with transcultural receptions of Squid Game. She is currently working on two book projects, Division and Connection: Korean Popular Culture Fans’ Gender and Racial Dynamics and A Poetics of Early Korean Science Fiction. Professor Jung teaches modern Korean literature, pop culture, and Korean cultural studies at George Mason University. She created the minor in Korean studies in 2017 and the Southeastern area's first bachelor of arts concentration in Korean in 2019.