Sunmin Kim
|Associate Professor
Associate Professor of Sociology
As a sociologist, I am primarily interested in examining the nexus between race, immigration, and national belonging through the lens of knowledge production. While often understood as self-evident, categories such as race, ethnicity, and citizenship are socially constructed through the work of social scientists, government officials, and activists. These actors engage in a collective intellectual endeavor to define who is regarded as different from whom and how they should be treated. Employing archival work, survey analysis, and in-depth interviews, I study how their work manifests in different domains, such as social sciences, immigration law, public opinion, and electoral politics. To this end, I have written about topics such as race and immigration policy, Asian American politics and identity, the construction of public opinion, and methods of historical sociology. My first book, The Unruly Facts of Race: The Politics of Knowledge Production in the Early Twentieth-Century Immigration Debate, was published in 2026 by the University of Chicago Press. I am currently working on a second book project, which looks at the role of social science research in the World War II Japanese American concentration camps.
Contact
Blunt Alum Ctr, Room 301D
HB 6104
Department(s)
Sociology
Education
- B.A. Seoul National University
- M.A. Seoul National University
- M.A. University of California, Berkeley
- Ph. D. University of California, Berkley
Selected Publications
Kim, Sunmin. 2026. The Unruly Facts of Race: The Politics of Knowledge Production in the Early Twentieth Century Immigration Debate. The University of Chicago Press. Link
김선민. 2025. "부르디외 정치사회학의 재구성": 「구별짓기」와 「국가에 관하여」를 잇는 정당성과 인지가치성 개념. 「한국사회학」 59(4): 317-355. (Kim, Sunmin. 2025. "Reconstructing Bourdieusian Political Sociology: Legitimacy and Legibility in Distinction and On the State" Korean Journal of Sociology 59(4): 317-355). Link
Kim, Sunmin, and Daniel Lin. 2025. "Collective Past as a Community-building Initiative: Teaching Asian American Studies through the History of Student Activism." Journal of Asian American Studies 28(3): 446-463. Link
Choi, Carolyn, and Sunmin Kim. 2025. "Category Traversing: Early Korean Immigrants Eluding the U.S. State." Ethnic and Racial Studies. Link.
Works In Progress
Domesticating the Racial Other: Social Science in the WWII Japanese American Concentration Camps (under contract with the University of Chicago Press)
"Limits of Facts-Based Advocacy: Immigration Politics Past and Present." (revise and resubmit)
"Assimilation in Market and Politics: Exit and Voice for Children of Imimgrants."
"Quantifying the Inscrutable: The Question of Japanese American Loyalty During the Internment" (with Hyunsik Chun)
"Boundary-Making across 22-OECD Countries: A Multi-Level Latent Class Approach" (with Inkwan Chung)
"The Heterogeneity among Asian Americans" (with Nolan Yee '25)
Selected Works & Activities
"Asian American Student Activism at Dartmouth College" (a student web exhibit from SOCY 76 Winter 2023: Race, Power, and Politics) Link