Building Connections in South Korea

18 Dec 2025

South Korea has emerged as a significant new site for observing migration-mobilities and migration politics in East Asia. The MIGMOBS project is currently engaged in work, involving post-doc Meiyun Meng, Gracia Liu-Farrer (Waseda University, Tokyo), and Adrian Favell on patterns and experiences of high skilled professional movers from China in Seoul and Tokyo. 

MIGMOBS PI Adrian Favell travelled to Korea in late November to attend a major conference in Asian Studies at Seoul National University, "Mega-Asia: A New Perspective on Asia". 

This took place at the impressive facilities of the SNU Asia Centre (SNUAC), here pictured with opening remarks from the Director of the Centre, the distinguished anthropologist Suhong Chae. Prof. Favell and Prof. Chae later shared vivid memories of the British UC-Berkeley sociologist Michael Burawoy over drinks and traditional Korean food.

A full report on the Conference can be found here. 

Prof. Favell presented a paper looking to draw broad comparisons between trends in European and Asia migration systems and governance, on a panel shared with Brenda Yeoh, who leads the Asian Migration research cluster at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. Meiyun Meng and Adrian Favell will be visiting this important centre of the study of migration in Asia in January, presenting further work from MIGMOBS.

In terms of building connections, the most useful part of the conference was a special roundtable organised by Hyunjoo Jung, director of the Centre for Asian Migration Studies at SNUAC, on "Building Bridges". Prof. Favell could advise upon various European research centres and networks with which SNUAC should seek to connect, as well as the new opportunities afforded for collaboration with and for South Korea as it has just become an associated member of the EU Horizon programme.

Politics in Korea remain as ever deeply polarised and tense. As well as a number of meetings with other scholars at SNU and other universities, Prof. Favell also travelled south to visit the city of Gwangju, site of the extraordinary citizens' uprising in 1980, that was brutally crushed by the authoritarian government of the time. When the former president Yoon announced the imposition of martial law in December last year — a dramatic move that failed and led to his imprisonment — memories were roused of past military coups that were eventually successfully overthrown by the democratisation movement.