Mobile Subjects

"While many scholars have examined the strategic uses of territoriality, the essays in this volume foreground the processes of cultural interaction, dislocation and dispossession as critically important to understanding the actual experiences of Koreans and to shaping understandings of the modern nation. The text sets itself apart from other collections on the Korean diaspora by refusing to define diaspora against nation as a solid reference point, but rather demonstrates how Korean modernity itself has been shaped by experiences of transnational movement and foreign encounter.... Given the quality of original research presented in this volume, it is clear that the authors will have a lasting impact in the field of Korean Studies."Rachael M. Joo, Middlebury College, Pacific Affairs 89, no. 1 (March 2016): 182184

What is fascinating about this book on diaspora is that it includes chapters on Koreans in the homeland.One might suspect diaspora in this book s subtitle, then, is a misnomer. To that point, Yeh argues that [c]entral to Korea s colonial experience was the dispossession of the Koreans culturally, socially, economically, and politically in their homeland (p. 6) and that this experience of colonial or neocolonial displacement was what rendered Koreans in the homeland still diasporic. These chapters on Koreans in the homeland seem somewhat misplaced at times, but Yeh s attempt to reconceptualize the notion of diaspora is certainly thought-provoking.Young-A Park, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Journal of Asian Studies 74, issue 3 (August 2015): 770-771