Hwaji Shin joined the Sociology Department at the University
of San Francisco as a full-time Assistant Professor in 2007 after
completed her Ph.D. in Sociology at SUNY Stony Brook. Between 2008
and 2010, she was a visiting assistant professor and Japan fund
fellow at Freeman Spogli Institute of International Studies at
Stanford University where she researched and lectured on the race
and ethnic relations in modern Japan.
Her research focuses on the relations of citizenship,
migration, and nationalism in Japan, with special emphasis on the
impact of colonialism and globalization. She has written articles
on the influence of globalization on social movements among Korean
minority groups in Japan. Her most recent article, "Colonial legacy
of ethno-racial inequality in Japanese society" ( Theory and
Society , 2010) addresses how colonialism made a lasting
impact on Japan's immigration policies and its
immigrants' experiences. She is also working on the
project which comparatively investigates experiences of two
minority groups (Burakumin and Koreans) and illuminates the highly
fluid and malleable nature of ethno-racial boundary transformation
in the Japanese context, while identifying the agency of both
Burakumin and Koreans in triggering different outcomes in
ethno-racial classifications.
At USF, she teaches on race, ethnicity, citizenship and
nationalism, sociological theory and globalization.
