Diasporic Korean Youth in the Age of Hallyu

Drawing on the research monograph Diasporic Hallyu: The Korean Wave in Korean Canadian Youth Culture (Yoon, 2022), this talk explored how young people of Korean heritage in Canada engage with the transnational circulation of Korean media and popular culture, known as Hallyu or the Korean Wave. By addressing the diasporic young people’s transnational media practices, this audience research examined an emerging cultural space where multiple identity positions and long-distance nationalism are articulated. The talk proposed an understanding of Hallyu from a diasporic perspective while suggesting a rethinking of transnational media flows beyond a nation-statist perspective.

Speaker Bio
Kyong Yoon is a UBC Okanagan Principal’s Research Chair in Trans-Pacific Digital Platform Studies. As a Korean-born settler scholar of colour in Canada, Yoon has studied young people of Asian heritage and their engagement with ethnic and diasporic media. Drawing on ethnographic and critical analyses of diasporic Asian youth’s media practices, he has explored Korean Canadian communities in relation to the recent transnational circulation of Korean media and popular culture.