Jaeeun Kim

Jaeeun Kim is Korea Foundation Endowed Associate Professor of Sociology and Professor of Law (by courtesy) at the University of Michigan's College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. She holds a Ph.D. from UCLA (2011) and completed postdoctoral fellowships at Princeton and Stanford.

Her research examines human mobility, categorization practices, and power dynamics in transnational contexts, with focus on diaspora politics and asylum systems. She is currently conducting multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork on religious asylum claims.

Her award-winning book Contested Embrace: Transborder Membership Politics in Twentieth-Century Korea (2016) received three major book prizes. Her publications explore membership boundary negotiations across Korea, Japan, and China.

• Thomas and Znaniecki Distinguished Book Award
• ASA Asia/Transnational Book Award
• Allan Sharlin Memorial Book Award
• Theory Prize (ASA Theory Section)