Jiwon Yun

Jiwon Yun's picture
Education: 
M.A. in Sociology, Seoul National University
B.A. in Sociology and South Asian Studies, Seoul National University, summa cum laude
Areas of Interest: 
Globalization; Cosmopolitanism; Race and Ethnicity; Multicultural Organizations; Intercultural Interactions
Email: 
jiwon.yun@yale.edu

Jiwon is interested in exchanges of people, cultures and ideas that arise out of globalization. At the heart of his projects lies the fundamental question: how do people build a community across cultural boundaries when they have very little in common? To answer this question, he looks at various forms of multicultural organizations. His Master’s thesis involved an ethnographic investigation of choirs run by Camarata Music, a multicultural music organization based in Seoul, South Korea. This project looked at interactions that take place across differences in nationality, ethnicity and sexuality, and examined the consequences of such interactions for the organization and its participants.

Jiwon will continue his work on intercultural interactions by looking at non-profit organizations of New Haven. This project highlights these organizations as pockets of philanthropy and cosmopolitanism that encourage individuals to work with a diverse group of people for a common goal. As he delves further into the project, Jiwon hopes to understand the mechanisms by which various participants navigate differences among themselves, seeing these differences as strengths and not weaknesses of the organization.

During the pandemic, Jiwon also developed an academic interest in the social construction of (im)mobility and its relationship with mediated communication. Currently, he is working on two projects to develop this interest further. These are: (1) how YouTube vlogging transforms the experience of immobility imposed by South Korean COVID-19 Quarantine Policies; and (2) the use of information and communication technologies to overcome the regime of border control in North Korea.

Publications

Yun, Jiwon. 2021. “Singing, Moving and Laughing Together: Engaging the Senses for a Cosmopolitan Atmosphere.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. (online access: https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2021.1987205)

Yun, Jiwon. 2019. Lonely Strangers of Metropolis: The Effect of Internal Migration Experience On Social Relationship Satisfaction. Korean Journal of International Migration 7(1): 35-56. (in Korean)