2025 Situations International ConferencePrecarity and Injustice: A Global Reckoning of Our Time October 23-24, 2025Institute of European and American Studies, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan The Situations journal has done several issues around the idea of precarity in the previous years. It is an issue of grave concern these days, as we witness the damages of climate change, wars, disease, ageing, racism, militarism, rising unemployment, and low fertility rate unfolding before us. While much of the discussion of precarity is geared towards raising our awareness of crises, articulated with affect, job insecurity, and mobility, little attention is paid to its articulation with injustice, as in the cases of the transnationalized, racialized and gendered chain of care and affective labor on a global scale and the rise of global surrogacy industries as a solution to infertility. In addition, while justice is a goal that any society aspires to, the uneven development of geography, technology, labor condition, gender and sexuality consciousness has not only polarized our society along race, gender, class, and generational lines, but also recentered precarity as a symptom of injustice, begging us to rethink what justice means in light of the great disparity and increasing precarity on all fronts. The return of Donald Trump to U.S. presidency moreover brought precarity to the foreground, and specifically exposed the precarity of minorities and undocumented migrants, denied the rights of Palestinians to return to Gaza, and sabotaged the sovereignty of Ukrainians who had fought a bloody war to keep their country and resources intact, now seeming in vain. Whereas the unending war in Ukraine illuminates the injustice of the international geopolitics through which the Ukrainian lives and sovereignty are made precarious, Trump’s call to “take over Gaza” overwrites precarity with a discourse of insecurity that regards securitization as privatization and transaction.The expanding gentrification in the name of development and the pandemic in Asia and beyond, moreover, painfully exposed the precarity of migrant labor, ageing population, first-line care workers and medical respondents, as well as the hegemony of bourgeois ideology that is making the city hospital to some, but not others. The emphasis on tight control over borders since the Covid years has created precarity for racialized/gendered/nationalized subjects (in the case of the Atlanta Spa Shooting of 2021) and explicit forms of xenophobia in many parts of the world where biometrics is fast becoming the cutting-edge means of control that enables subtle forms of racism and puts democracy in jeopardy. In Asia, the precarity discourse is usually associated with the dwindling of the future for the younger generation, which manifests in the rising cost of living, hiking unemployment rate, lack of an intimate life, and the quick drop of fertility. These issues raise questions about reproductive justice (the mounting pressure of raising a family and the increase in the rate of divorce and singlehood), social alienation and the rise of digital intimacy, and the outsourcing of care and reproductive labor to migrant workers and surrogate parenthood that is reconfiguring the notion of kinship. Therefore, rather than looking at precarity as a singularized frame of analysis, informed by neoliberalism, it might be helpful to capture how precarity intersects with injustice, along the global chain of supply and securitization discourse on border control; and how a renewed politics of solidarity and coalition, along with an expanded vision of family andkinship, informed by our relational interdependence, may emerge from our reckoning with and theorization of the current conjunctures. It is an issue that requires a global approachThrough this collaboration between South Korea’s Yonsei University and Taiwan’s Academia Sinica, Situations hopes to provide a global approach to our precarious modernity and grounded analysis of the vexing problems at hand. Papers addressing the following topics in Asia and beyond, though not exclusive to them, are welcomed: 1.     Precarity, intimacy, and reproductive justice2.     Precarity and the right of mobility in political crises3.     Precarity and ageing society4.     Precarity and transitional and/or transnational justice5.     Precarity and solidarity and coalition building6.     Precarity, urban gentrification, and natural disaster7.     Precarity and the remaking of geography and place (refugee camps, occupy movement for instance)8.     Precarity, militarism, and peace activism9.     Precarity, political injustice, and democracy10.  Precarity, indigeneity, and minority survival11.  Precarity, climate crisis, and environmental injustice12.  Precarity, digital divide, and sociocultural exclusion13.  Precarity, migrant labor, and citizenship14.  Surrogacy, family values, and heteronormativity15.  Precarity and queer imaginations  Early inquiries with 200-word abstracts are appreciated. We invite you to submit your 4,000-word Chicago-style conference presentation with its abstract and keywords by August 15, 2025 (the acceptance of the presentation will be decided based on the 4,000-word paper). Each invited participant is then expected to turn his or her conference presentation into a finished 6,000-word paper for possible inclusion in a future issue of the SCOPUS-indexed journal, Situations: Cultural Studies in the Asian Context. All inquiries and submissions should be sent to both situations@yonsei.ac.kr and skrhee@yonsei.ac.kr. Submissions should follow the Chicago Manual of Style (16th ed.), using only endnotes.  

Is Netflix Riding the Korean Wave or Vice Versa? II: Shifting Local and Global RelationshipsJuly 18-19, 2025Yonsei University, Seoul, South KoreaIn December 2024, Squid Game 2, which was produced in South Korea, one more time, made a global sensation. Regardless of negative observations by some media critics and media outlets, upon release, this brutal seven-part survival drama quickly took the top spot in 93 countries. Squid Game 2 is the latest example of Korean cultural content, which Netflix distributes globally. Netflix had already invested in several Korean cultural products, including Bong Joon-ho’s film Okja (2017) and the historical epic Mr. Sunshine (2018). In 2019, Netflix released its first original Korean zombie drama series, Kingdom, followed by D.P. (2021) and The Glory (2023). Netflix has also circulated numerous K-dramas and films. Other global OTTs are not left behind. Moving (2023), The Worst of Evil (2023), and Light Shop (2024) in Disney+ show the increasing role of global OTTs in relation to the Korean Wave. As Korea has talented content creators and cultural products, Netflix and Disney+ are tactically riding the Korean Wave.Netflix and Disney+ have undoubtedly shifted the ways in which people consume visual narratives, ranging from television dramas to full-length films tailored to global audiences. In so doing, these global OTTs have influenced the Korean entertainment industry. Due to heavy impacts driven by Netflix and Disney+, Korean cultural creators reorient their production norms to greet the new world these global forces design. This rapidly shifting media environment creates tensions between global and local cultural industries, which are concerned about the decreasing role of the local cultural industries as well as the loss of cultural identity. However, Netflix’s strategic emphasis on producing local original content has significantly contributed to creating culturally diverse, multilingual international audiences.The current development of the Korean Wave content on global OTTs, as can be seen in Squid Game 1 and 2, Moving, The Glory, Physical: 100, Culinary Class Wars (2023), and Light Shop (2024), asks scholars to advance new theoretical and practical approaches in understanding the power relations between local and global cultural actors in the Korean context, which is becoming part of the global cultural sphere. The impact of these global OTTs is expected to change the face of the Korean Wave, one of the most powerful examples of transnational cultural flows. It is crucial to create new perspectives that drive the Korean Wave to the level of new grounds. In this conference, we plan to analyze new horizons generated by global OTT platforms, including Netflix, in tandem with the Korean Wave.We welcome contributions that address the recent development, triggering a fundamental shift in our understanding of Hallyu and OTTs. As a group, we plan to discuss the possibility of advancing non-Western theories and/or new theoretical perspectives amid the continuation of the Korean Wave on global OTT platforms. Throughout the discussions, we hope to shed light on current debates and place them in perspectives relevant to future transnational cultural studies.This conference serves as a sequel to the international conference "Is Netflix Riding the Korean Wave or Vice Versa?" that was held at Seoul National University in April 2022. The event laid the foundation for further scholarly exploration. As a direct outcome of that conference, the organizers collaborated on editing a special issue for the International Journal of Communication, which was published in 2023. The revised and updated papers, together with several new additions, were presented at the City University of Hong Kong inDecember 2024.Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:Cultural/critical analysis of Squid Game (including season 1, 2 and 3) Transnational cultural flows from the Global South Netflix's effects on Korean Wave content Shifting cultural genres in the Netflix era Netflix audience research: methods and perspectives Comparative studies of Netflix’s original productions Case studies of individual production companies and/or filmmakers before and after their cooperation with global OTTs Historical perspectives on streaming technologies and services and Korean media Shifting power relationships between global and local OTTs Shifting media ecology surrounding the Korean Wave and OTTs Effects of Netflix on storytelling and aesthetics of Korean cinema and TV Critical Understanding of OTT platforms in the Korean cultural scene Conference Details:1. Conference Schedule: date and placeYonsei University, Seoul, Korea. July 18-19, 20252. DeadlineTo apply, please send an abstract (300 words max.), a short biography (150 words max.), and a 2-page CV to Dr. Jungju Shin (bk21eng-intl@yonsei.ac.kr). The deadline for applications is 28 February 2025. We will notify the accepted abstracts at the end of March 2025.3. OutcomesThere will be two potential projects based on the conference, as we did with the first conference held in 2022. One will be a journal special issue. The other will be an edited volume. Since we plan to develop these two different academic publications in English, we only accept original materials not published or scheduled elsewhere.4. Conference supportWe may provide some benefits to the presenters, including registration fees and meals. However, we do not support travel and accommodation. Though, we may support, even partially, a few graduate students. If you have any questions, please contact Miseong Woo (mswoo@yonsei.ac.kr) or Dal Yong Jin (yongjin23@gmail.com).

2024 Situations International Conference 22-23 November, 2024Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea Asian Diaspora in the 21st Century:Transnational Hauntology and Affective Production  Scholars have extensively debated the meaning and significance of diaspora. At their inception, classic diaspora studies considered a racial or ethnic group’s dispersal caused by religious difference, the Jewish people being the archetype in understanding diaspora. The scope of modern diaspora studies has been expanded to embrace emancipatory politics and the exploration of various conditions of racial, ethnic, and political minorities. Contemporary diaspora is characterized by fragmentation, dislocation, and globalization, and these new features must be clearly redefined and analyzed. Non-European diaspora experience, Asian diaspora in particular, has not been extensively explored. Raising questions about the magnitude and the limited destinations of Korean migration being identified as a diaspora, Gerard Chaliand and Jean Pierre Rageau argue that “the total number of overseas Koreans lacks the massive proportions of a typical diaspora, such as the Irish case, in which more than half of the population emigrated from their homeland” (1995). Should we define an ethnic group’s diaspora through size or distance? Doesn’t the atypicality of the Korean diaspora call for a retheorization of diaspora today? A small group of migrants may have felt themselves to be in a precarious situation in the 19th and 20th centuries, but in the 21st century, diasporic subjects have multiple ways of retaining contact with their communities of origin, thanks to advances in communication technology and frequent air travel. Contemporary diasporas in the 21st century can be characterized by varieties of diasporic experience that no longer necessitate a permanent break from one’s homeland. The consciousness of being a diasporic subject may no longer depend as much on a physical and geographic separation from a homeland. What does diasporic consciousness mean then in a world where contact and even return to the homeland is possible? And turning away from the attention of ethnicity or race on diaspora to the emotional experience of being unsettled, displaced, and haunted, may unveil a greater understanding of our being in the 21st century. Playing on the concept of ontology and resonating with his lifelong project of deconstruction, Jacques Derrida suggests by the term, hauntology, how to engage ghosts and historical remnants from the past. (Hau)ntology is a neologism that reminds us that we are always displaced and unhomed. When diasporic subjects seek to break away from their past, it can always come back to haunt their present experience associated with mixed feelings of melancholia, rage, alienation, anomie, and hopefulness for a better future. The displaced subjects’ affective production transcending the limited ties of kinship and nation can mediate the deterritorialized humanity in the 21st century. Situations (Volume 18, No. 1, 2025) calls for papers that explore concepts of migration and diaspora in the 21st century and/or papers that examine literary and cultural content representing, mediating, or rearticulating the diasporic consciousness of Asian diaspora communities. Possible topics:·      Contemporary diasporas: North Korean defectors, the Zainichi community, the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia, and the South Asian diaspora in African and Arab states·      diasporic consciousness: displacement and lost land, homeland and host land·      language barriers and linguistic isolation·      citizenship and sense of belonging·      the myth and politics of return·      refugee camps, resettlement, and national borders·      gendered experience within diasporic communities·      inter-Asian migration and politics of asylum·      the problem of collective memory in diasporic communities·      assimilation and de-assimilation in one’s adopted land·      diaspora and the “blue humanities” centered on oceans and seas  Confirmed Keynote Speakers:Chua Beng Huat, Professor Emeritus in Department of Sociology, National University of SingaporeJohn Lie, Distinguished Professor of Sociology, U.C. BerkeleySo-young Kim, Professor of Cinema Studies, Korea National University of Arts  Early inquiries with 200-word abstracts are appreciated. By 31 August 2024, we would invite you to submit your 4,000-word Chicago-style conference presentation with its abstract and keywords (the acceptance of the presentation will be decided based on the 4,000-paper). Each invited participant is then expected to turn his or her conference presentation into a finished 6,000-word paper for possible inclusion in a future issue of the SCOPUS-indexed journal, Situations: Cultural Studies in the Asian Context. All inquiries and submissions should be sent to both situations@yonsei.ac.kr and skrhee@yonsei.ac.kr. Submissions should follow the Chicago Manual of Style (16th ed.), using only endnotes. Notes:We will pay for the hotel accommodation for those participants whose papers we accept. The presenters will share twin bedrooms.