Thomas Chan-Soo Kang Room (S050), CGIS South Building, 1730 Cambridge Street

Sheena Chestnut Greitens
Academy Scholars, Harvard Academy for International & Area Studies; Assistant Professor, University of

Missouri

Sheena Chestnut Greitens is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University

of Missouri, and co-director of the university’s Institute for Korean Studies. She is also a non-resident senior

fellow at the Center for East Asian Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution and an associate in research

at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University.  Dr. Greitens holds a Ph.D from Harvard

University; an M.Phil from Oxford University, where she studied as a Marshall Scholar; and a B.A. from

Stanford University.

Chaired by John Park, Director, Korea Working Group and Adjunct Lecturer, Harvard Kennedy School;

Faculty Affiliate, Project on Managing the Atom, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, HKS

Abstract:
Most North Korean refugees and defectors live in South Korea. In the past decade, however, a growing

number have sought to move beyond the Korean peninsula, resettling instead in North America, Europe,

and other locations around the world. This presentation examines the factors that have contributed to the

 emergence of this new, global North Korean diaspora, arguing that contestation over conceptions of

citizenship at both the level of the individual and the level of government policy have shaped the migration

and resettlement of North Korean defectors and refugees. These changes in resettlement patterns, in turn,

have significant implications not only for the human security of individuals and families from North Korea,

but for global policy toward the DPRK.