Title: Save Women from Dangerous Muslim Men? Yemeni Muslim Male Refugees’ Dream, Labor, and Homemaking in South Korea’s Refugee Regime and Beyond

Speaker: Yura Hyeon (Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Münster)

Date: Friday 26 September, 2025  Friday 3 October, 2025

Time: 1:00-2:30pm  4:00-5:30pm

Mode: In-person

Venue: Room 114  Room 401, Humanities Building, New Asia College, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Abstract:

The sudden appearance of 561 Yemeni asylum seekers on Jeju Island in 2018 rendered South Koreans aware of the existence of refugees in society first time, who had been invisible neighbors for years. Yemenis became embroiled in tremendous backlashes, stigmatizing them as fake refugees, and especially sex criminals who would harm Korean women. Grounded in ethnographic fieldwork between 2019 and 2023, this article zooms out on their feverish arrival and stigmatization, looking into Yemeni male refugees’ lived experiences that have been highly neglected. Refugee men and masculinity are still too little discussed despite the ongoing powerful framing of refugee men, precisely Muslim Arab men, threatening women, public safety, and sovereignty of ‘democratic society’. The study explores how Yemeni refugees’ masculinized dreams and aspirations shape and transform their migration, while simultaneously reinforcing the refugee regime, continuing to exploit their labor.

Bio:

Yura Hyeon is a PhD candidate in the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Münster. She has studied literature, media, and public policy and administration with a regional focus of East Asia in Seoul, Hangzhou, and Berlin. Her interdisciplinary and migratory background has continually shaped her positionality on the periphery as a migrant, fuelling her motivation for her current doctoral research project on Yemenis of humanitarian sojourner status in South Korea’s refugee regime and beyond.