Yousun Chung

Yousun Chung, a dissertator in political science, has been engaged in studying languages, cultures, and social changes in East Asian countries. She has studied in her native South Korea as well as Japan and China through her undergraduate and graduate studies. After getting her master’s degree in Chinese Area Studies, she has paid more attention to political-economic changes in contemporary China. Her current research is focused on the commodification of social welfare in contemporary China: how the change in conception and practice of social justice can affect individuals, communities, and the state-society relationship more broadly. By studying housing reform in urban China as a comparative case study of this topic, she will try to illuminate how state, business and urban residents interact with each other in this important transformation. This summer, with the Scott Kloeck-Jenson Grant’s help, she will travel to China to have access to relevant documents and to conduct interviews with local players in housing commodification.

Yousun’s fellowship report can be viewed here.