We are proud to announce that the James Joo-Jin Kim Center has awarded PhD Candidate Youngrong Lee the prestigious 2024 I-CSK Student Paper Award for Korean Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Lee was awarded for her paper "To Organize the Crises: A Comparative Ethnography of Gig Workers’ Unions in Seoul and Toronto."
This paper is part of Lee's dissertation project, The Contested Making of Gig Workers: A Comparative Study of Global Capital in the Gig Economy in Seoul and Toronto. Drawing on twenty-one months of international ethnographic fieldwork with gig workers' unions in both cities, the paper explores how and why these two unions adopt different strategies to address critical crises within the gig economy despite operating in similar organizational contexts.
This significant achievement highlights Lee's dedication to exploring the complexities of labor movements and global capitalism.
We congratulate Lee on this well-deserved recognition and look forward to her continued contributions to her field of study.