Presented in person and online; details below.

Marriage migration between Vietnam and South Korea has grown exponentially since the early 2000s, with more than 100,000 Vietnamese women marrying Korean men by the end of 2020. Although often imagined as a one-time, linear movement dictated by global flows and inequalities, women’s narratives reveal far more complex trajectories across different phases of what can be understood as “marriage migration cycles.” Drawing on long-term ethnographic research conducted since 2015, this talk examines one understudied phase: repeat marriage migration, in which women cross national borders multiple times through successive marriages, experiencing layered, messy and shifting migration trajectories. Through the narratives of Vietnamese women, the talk demonstrates that repeat marriage migration is not an exception but a meaningful and recurring phase within marriage migration between Vietnam and Korea. Moreover, care, ageing and intertextuality emerge as central themes in these women’s narratives, shaping their desires and decisions, as well as the transnational selves they cultivate.

Speaker:
Dr Hayeon Lee is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the ANU Korea Institute in the College of Asia and the Pacific. An anthropologist of Korea and Vietnam with formal training in social work, she received her PhD from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her research interests include feminist ethnography, transnational migration, intersectionality, Vietnam–South Korea relations, memory and ageing. She is currently developing a book manuscript based on her dissertation, Korea Dreaming: Vietnamese Women’s Stories from the Marriage Migration Cycle, which forms the basis of this talk.

Zoom link: https://anu.zoom.us/j/82431454032?pwd=owA39nWqTYm2TGOcC0sWa9bEDVangD.1
In-person: H.C Coombs Building, Seminar Room C, Ground floor (near Coombs Lecture theatre)