"Contested Embrace sets a new standard in the study of migration and the state. Kim's theoretically agile and ethnographically vivid account shows how ordinary people and governments across Northeast Asia have wrestled over the question of who is Korean, and what that means in practice." —David Scott Fitzgerald, University of California, San Diego

"Contested Embrace is a brilliant and bracing analysis of transborder membership politics. Exhaustively researched and meticulously argued, Jaeeun Kim's book is required reading for anyone interested in modern Northeast Asia, comparative ethnicity and nationalism, and transnational and global studies. It is a great book to think with." —John Lie, University of California, Berkeley

"This impressive work shows that neither instrumentalist nor culturalist views do justice to how states deal with their diaspora communities abroad and brings rare nuance to the vexed "transnationalism" problematic. Allergic to false binaries of many sorts, not least the one of micro v. macro, Contested Embrace is simply good sociology." —Christian Joppke, University of Bern

"Kim'sContested Embrace presents a commanding account of the long-term macrohistorical and regional interstate dynamics of the Korean transborder membership, mapping twentieth- and twenty-first-century Korean migration and repatriation across East Asia."—Journal of Asian Studies


"An impressive study, with in-depth historical narratives, engaging theoretical discussions, rich archival and ethnographic data, and nuanced analysis. Contested Embraceis the first extensive study that examines all the Korean transborder populations in Northeast Asia."—American Journal of Sociology


"The contributions of Contested Embrace to the literature on nationalism, transnationality, citizenship, and migration are manifold and impressive. In terms of research ambition, scope, and quality of research, this book is a tour de force."—Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review


"A groundbreaking work that reshapes the field of international migration with rich, unusual ethnography, a convincing historical account, and a broader theoretical appeal to the study of nationalism, citizenship, and globalization."—Contemporary Sociology


"Invoking such concepts as 'the presentation of self' (Goffman) and 'weapons of the weak'(Scott), Kim provides a vivid analysis of migrants' involvement in document forgeries, sham marriages, and other forms of identity fraud, contributing an especially agentic portrayal of the politics of 'who is what.'"—Han'guk Munhwa (Korean Culture)


"Contested Embrace uniquely and thoroughly connects the structural changes in the nation-building process, changes in geopolitical orders, and political and economic shifts in East Asia to the micro-analysis of individuals' experiences and negotiations with top-down policies."—Sociological Forum


"Kim has meticulously utilized both historiographic and ethnographic approaches to dissect and analyze the discourse of belonging on the part of ethnic Koreans caught up in the violent and divisive historical developments in twentieth-century East Asia. Contested Embrace is a seminal work that integrates the historical, political, social, and economic experiences of diasporic Koreans in Japan and China vis-à-vis North and South Korea."—Arnel E. Joven, Pacific Affairs

Jaeeun Kim is Assistant Professor of Sociology and the Korea Foundation Assistant Professor of Korean Studies at the University of Michigan. Kim was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University from 2012 to 2013.