Decentering Citizenship: Gender, Labor, and Migrant Rights in South Korea by Hae Yeon Choo and Contested Embrace: Transborder Membership Politics in Twentieth-Century Korea by Jaeeun Kim both approach the formation of national membership and citizenship in light of the experiences of people at the margins of nation—in Choo's book, the Filipina migrants in South Korea, and in Kim's book, the Korean diaspora in Japan and China. Understood through these others of the nation, national membership is not a bundle of legal rights but a negotiated relationship among the state, civil society, and individuals. In tune with the growing interest in the rights-claims of people at the margins in citizenship studies of the last decade or so, Choo and Kim delve into the political and cultural construction of rights, identities, and entitlements. In their studies migration is, in turn, not simply the pursuit of economic opportunity but also a political, symbolic,...

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