I am a Principal Researcher at the Institute of Korean Studies at Yonsei University. My research brings modern Korean and East Asian economic history into conversation with the histories of Hong Kong and the British Empire in Asia.
My work challenges modern Korean historiography's privileging of the United States and Japan as the primary external frames for understanding postwar Korea. I situate postwar Korea instead within the overlapping political, commercial, and financial orders of East Asia. By following Korean private traders across borders, I examine how they sought room for maneuver through Hong Kong-centered networks of British imperial commerce and connected the Korean economy to world markets.
Drawing on questions from Hong Kong and British imperial history, I read modern Korean history both from the inside out—tracing Korean actors into maritime markets—and from the outside in—asking how imperial, commercial, and monetary systems shaped developments within Korea. My current book project is Outflanking Empire: Korean Private Trade Networks in the Cold War Economy of East Asia, 1945–1957.