​Drawing on ethnographic research and interviews with young adults in Seoul and Tokyo, this research seeks to understand why we experience inequality and insecurity in the ways we do at different times and places. 

Published research
​
​2022. “Contradiction as Injustice: How Senses of Inequality Differ Across National Contexts.” Sociology 56(4): 710–729. — Link to the paper — Pdf
​
In progress 

Grammars of Injustice: Divergent Responses to Inequality and Insecurity among Millennials in Tokyo and Seoul — book manuscript in preparation

(With Dr. Myungji Yang) “Pace of Institutional Changes and the Sense of Injustice among Millennials in South Korea and Japan.”— draft available upon request

In this project, I try to understand the personal consequences of the growth of unstable employment for workers and their responses to it. ​

Published research
​
2022 (online first). (with Jaeseog Yang) “Death from Overwork in a Time of Pandemic: How Delivery Work Became a Locus of Public Debate in South Korea.” Journal of Contemporary Asia — Link to the paper

​2019. “Precarious Regular Jobs in Japan.” Japan Forum 33(4):633-657.  — Link to the paper — Pdf
  • 2018-2019 Graduate Student Best Paper Award, Department of Sociology, UHM​

l am also working on another project about democracy and right-wing politics in Japan and other East Asian societies, a topic I have been continuously researching since 2011. 

Published research

2021. (with Dr. Sharon Yoon) “The Rise and Fall of Japan’s New Far-Right: How Anti-Korean Discourses Went Mainstream.” Politics & Society 49(3): 363-402. — Link to the paper — Pdf

2020. (with Dr. Naoto Higuchi) “The Third Round of Immigrant Incorporation in East Asia: An Introduction to Special Issue Friends and Foes of Multicultural East Asia.” Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia 19(2): 1-19. — Link to the paper — Pdf

2020. (Guest editor with Dr. Naoto Higuchi) “Friends and Foes of Multiculturalism in East Asia.” Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia 19 (2) Link to the journal

2019. “Becoming Right-Wing Citizens in Contemporary Japan.” Contemporary Japan 31(2): 122-140. — Link to the paper — Pdf
  • 2020 Contemporary Japan Best Paper Award 

Book review

2021. "Review of Japan’s Nationalist Right in the Internet Age: Online Media and Grassroots Conservative Activism by Jeffrey Hall." Contemporary Japan. Online first. Link to the paper

In progress

Forthcoming. “New Right-Wing Movement as Alternative Politics” in Alternative Politics in Japan edited by D. Slater and P. Steinhoff. University of Hawai'i Press.
  • 2016 Seidensticker Award for Best Japan Paper, SPAS Graduate Student Conference, UHM

(With Dr. Myungji Yang) “Coalition between Perpetrator and Victim: Transnational Connections between the Japanese and South Korean Right-wing Intellectuals.”