Jaehyung Kim

Dissertation Abstract: My dissertation examines cross-border movement between North Korea and China from 1945 to 1964, focusing on migration, return, displacement, and resettlement under conditions shaped by war, revolution, and shifting state power. By tracing how individuals navigated these upheavals, the dissertation engages broader ethical questions about vulnerability, coercion, belonging, and the responsibilities of states and societies toward people living through crises. A central concern of the project is how political transformation reshaped the lives of ordinary people amid the formation of new nation-states. These histories raise questions about how states classify and treat mobile populations, how access to protection and settlement is distributed, and how political systems determine who is recognized as deserving, suspect, or expendable. The dissertation contributes a historical perspective to contemporary debates over migration, inclusion, and exclusion by showing how emerging nation-states constructed new regimes for governing mobility and how migrants, returnees, refugees, and ethnic minorities navigated them.