Jinwon Kim

Jinwon Kim, Ph.D. is an assistant professor of sociology at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. Prior to this position, she was a tenure-track assistant professor at New York City College of Technology, City University of New York (2019-2024), and a visiting assistant professor of sociology at Hamilton College, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, and Oberlin College.

Kim’s research and teaching focus on urban sociology, Asian and Asian American studies, race and ethnicity, transnational and global sociology, migration, consumption, and qualitative research methods.

Her first monograph, Transclave: Branding Korea and Consuming Ethnicity in Koreatown, New York City (under contract with NYU Press, expected in 2025), examines how Korea’s nation-branding strategies involving Korean food and pop culture shape Manhattan’s Koreatown into a distinctive type of ethnic enclave, which she terms a “transclave,”—a transnational space for Seoul-style consumption characterized by intensive flows of people, money, and consumer culture between the U.S. and Korea. This project is based on 135 in-depth interviews, participant observation, and archival research.

She is currently working on two other book projects. The first, titled New Trends, Old Conflicts: New Black-Korean Relations in an Era of Global Racism and Global Media, examines anti-Blackness and a new form of Black-Korean relations and conflicts within the Korean media and entertainment industry. She conducted preliminary research from 2016 to 2018, followed by two rounds of international fieldwork in 2022 and 2023, completing 154 in-depth interviews in the U.S. and Korea. She plans to conclude her fieldwork by 2025. Her second project, From Chinatown to Koreatown: Immigration, Gentrification, and Spatial Boundaries in Flushing, New York City, focuses on interethnic and intraethnic relations among Chinese, Koreans, and Joseonjok, or Korean Chinese (an ethnic minority group in China of Korean descent), within the Asian community in Queens, New York City, at the time of gentrification and urban redevelopment near the waterfront and downtown. These conflicts are shaped by both transnational factors, such as geopolitics, political and cultural tensions in East Asia, and transnational investments, and local dynamics, including gentrification and urban redevelopment plans in New York City. She completed the first round of fieldwork in 2024, conducting 162 in-depth interviews with local residents, workers, business owners, and community advocates. As a long-term initiative, she plans to continue this project over the next five years.

Her work has appeared in City & Community, The International Journal of Cultural Policy, CUNY Forum, A Companion to Korean American Studies, COVID-19 and Global Cities: Comparative Perspectives (in Korean), and World Politics and Economy (in Korean). She also co-edited Koreatowns: Exploring the Economics, Politics, and Identities of Korean Spatial Formations with two other sociologists, and contributed chapters to the volume. This edited work was published by Lexington Books in 2020.