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GRADUATION INTERVIEW ▼

Migrants' Identity and Sense of Belonging in the Digital Age: Sociopolitical Challenges Encountered in Social Integration Today

AN INTERVIEW WITH SUNYONG PARK

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SHORT PROFILE
 

Name: Sunyong Park
Field: Political Science
Dissertation: Migrants' Identity and Sense of Belonging in the Digital Age: Sociopolitical Challenges Encountered in Social Integration Today

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Our doctoral member Sunyong Park has successfully completed her dissertation. In her Graduation Interview, she gives insights into the topic and findings of her dissertation, talks about her time at the BAGSS, and shares the next step in her career.

// What drew you to your dissertation topic and what interests you most about it?

S.P.My dissertation covers some sociopolitical issues regarding migrant sense of belonging and identity in digital era. Frist, I myself have been part of the global migration wave since I was teenager, led me to live in the US, China, Russia, the UK, and of course Germany. Throughout the whole experiences, I’ve been drawn myself to ask whom I wish to be in the place I belong and how the people living in the same space see as who I am. This question has been developed as my intellectual journey, starting with my masters on migrants’ transnationalism and socioeconomic settlement, and for the doctoral dissertation – migrant sense of belonging and identity as the heart of the true meaning of social integration.

// Can you give us a small sneak peek about the findings of your thesis?

S.P.  The four studies offer findings from migrant perspective, interacting with various scales of society – namely, individual, relational (within-group and intergroups), and societal level. At the individual level, the findings provided nuanced evidence of how migrant proactively cope with incongruent categorization given by the destination society, actively weaving own social networks to establish own sense of belonging. At the relational level, different social events provided the specific occasions to observe how migrant express, manifest, contest, and reconcile with sense of self and belonging, providing diverged interplays with online social platforms that eventually coevolve with the people as active users and creators of digital world. At the societal level, the evidence sheds light on how institutional system and its digitalization affect migrant sense of belonging, considered as societal attitude and the degree of inclusion shaped by nation-states. All in all, the dissertation presents the up-to-date landscape of migrant sense of self and belonging especially concerning their roles of social integration in digital era.

 

// What did you enjoy most about your time at the Graduate School?

S.P. Very supportive admin staffs and funding system at BAGSS, my cohorts who have become true friends of life, and the inspiring colleagues and professors whom I was privileged to work with at BAGSS.  

// What is the next step in your career?

S.P.  I am now a guest professor in the department of International Studies at Yonsei University in Seoul. I keep working on my research, focusing on the refugee policy development and their settlement, as well as teaching young students, hoping to elevate the awareness of diversity, migrant sense of belonging and social integration in South Korea.