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Podcast: New Books in Anthropology
Episode: June Hee Kwon, "Borderland Dreams: The Transnational Lives of Korean Chinese Workers" (Duke UP, 2023)
Description: Migration is a theme intertwined with hopes and dreams. In Borderland Dreams: The Transnational Lives of Korean Chinese Workers (Duke UP, 2023), June Hee Kwon explores the trajectory of the âKorean dreamâ that has fueled the massive migration of Korean Chinese workers from the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in northeast China to South Korea since the early 1990s. Charting the interplay of bodies, money, and time, the ethnography reveals how these migrant workers, in the course of pursuing their borderland dreams, are transformed into a transnational ethicized class. Kwon analyzes the persistent desire of Korean Chinese to âleave to live betterâ...