Current researches

2023-2024. Positioning of the USSR in international debates on population issues (as part of the ANR EUGENE project "Governing humans, controlling reproduction")

The starting point for this research project is a question: how did eugenics, with its postulate of ontological inequality between individuals, become embedded in the universalist thinking of the modern state? Far from disappearing after its murderous uses under Nazism, the eugenics reference was not ousted but reconfigured right up to the present day. It is this discreet life that we are seeking to unearth, by studying the policies of reproductive population control in France and the Soviet Union. As part of this project, I am working on the position of the USSR in international debates on population after the official ban on eugenics research at the end of the 1930s.

Since 2023. The process of integration of ethnic Koreans from Central Asia in South Korea

This research aims to examine the trajectory of Korean-origin migrants from Central Asia in South Korea. The Korean diaspora community in Central Asia is primarily located in Uzbekistan (181,000), Kazakhstan (109,000), and Kyrgyzstan (19,000). Since the fall of the USSR, most of them decide to return to their ancestral homeland. This return is conditioned by the migration policy for 'compatriots (Koreans) abroad' introduced by the Korean government in the 1990s. Upon arriving in a new country, ethnic Koreans, known as Koryŏ saram (코료사람), or Koryo-in (고려인), settle in areas where the concentration of their ethnic community members is high (enclaves). The uniqueness of these enclaves lies not in ethnic but cultural grounds, where the Russian language plays a significant role. The question here is to study the role of these spaces in their integration process and to explore whether the descendants of this migration have access to social mobility, allowing them to occupy a significantly different position than their immigrant parents. This work seeks to demonstrate the complexity and multidimensionality of the integration process for ethnic Koreans and the diversity of integration models they experience after settling in South Korea.