[Daviscenter-list] 3/4/10 Korea Colloquium: "Contested Subjects and Jurisdictions: Korean Migrants in the Ussuri Borderland, 1880-1920"

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Korea Colloquium co-sponsored by the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies *Alyssa Park* Korea Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellow, Korea Institute, Harvard University *"Contested Subjects and Jurisdictions: Korean Migrants in the Ussuri Borderland, 1880-1920"* *Thursday, March 4* *4:30 p.m.* * * * * *Porté** Seminar Room (S250)* *CGIS South Building* *1730 Cambridge Street* Chaired by* Carter J. Eckert*, Yoon Se Young Professor of Korean History, Harvard University * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The Korea Institute acknowledges the generous support of the Korea Colloquium by the Academy of Korean Studies, Korea/./ * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Bio: Alyssa Park finished her Ph.D. from the History department at Columbia in 2009. She became interested in the study of Korea through her work on Russia and the Soviet Union. She researches issues of transnational migration, border regions, and national identities, themes which are addressed in her recently completed dissertation, "Borderland Beyond: Korean Migrants and the Creation of a Modern Boundary between Korea and Russia, 1860 to 1937." She explores the institutionalization of a state border between the two countries through geopolitical contests, technologies of state surveillance, and the circulation of global ideas about mobility and citizenship. Part of her research was conducted in the Russian Far East, which houses previously untapped materials on Koreans living abroad in Russia from the mid-19th century to mid-20th century. She hopes to add the perspective of Koreans in Manchuria to her current project on the borderlands of Korea. Abstract: This paper examines changes in mobility laws regarding Koreans in the late nineteenth century the unintended consequences of these changes. Whereas movement was previously controlled by a host of factors, such as one's vocation, class, lineage, or religion, in the late nineteenth century, nationality became the primary factor in determining the terms of one's movement between Korea and Russia - one was defined either as a "Korean" subject or a "Russian" subject. Though the new laws and passports clearly demarcated the one's legal status, levels of enforcement and comprehension on the part of Korean and Russian border officials varied. The new laws, it turned out, were constantly being negotiated and redefined at the local level, a process which helped spread an awareness of the hardened boundary among migrants themselves.