Understanding Korea through Diaspora: Division, Identity and Coexistence among North Koreans, South Koreans and Joseonjok in the UK
Key information
- Date
- Time
-
5:00 pm to 7:00 pm
- Venue
- Russell Square: College Buildings
- Room
- RG01
- Event type
- Seminar
About this event
Drawing on his ethnographic research in New Malden, Dr. Callum Sol Morrissey (조솔) examines how North Koreans, South Koreans and Joseonjok live alongside one another in the UK.
The talk explores how migration reshapes Korean identity and how division, difference and belonging are negotiated through everyday encounters. In doing so, it asks what the Korean diaspora can teach us about Korea beyond the peninsula, as well as the possibilities and limits of coexistence.
Header image credit: Changyang Kim
About the speaker
Dr Callum Sol Morrissey is a Post-Doctoral Research Associate at the Centre of Korean Studies, SOAS University of London. He holds a BA and PhD from Goldsmiths, University of London, and an MSc from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
His doctoral research, Between Ruins and Reunification: Identities, Postcolonialism, and Boundaries in the North, South and Joseonjok Korean Diasporas in the UK, was based on three years of ethnographic fieldwork in New Malden. Drawing on more than 80 interviews, the research examined how experiences of migration, national division and colonial history shape identities across diverse Korean communities.
His current research explores Korean diasporic identity, media and popular culture, inter-Korean relations, North Korean human rights, and the social and cultural legacies of Korea’s division. He is particularly interested in how displaced and diasporic communities remember the Korean peninsula, negotiate belonging and imagine alternative futures.
