Dr. Rebecca Chiyoko King-O’ Riain
Academic Career
B.A. Carleton College, Northfield Minnesota
M.A. University of California, Berkely
PhD University of California, Berkely
Associate Professor and Chair of the Sociology Department, University of San Francisco
Faculty of Sociology N.U.I. Maynooth 2004 - present.
Research Interests
I am currently working on a number of projects exploring the impact that globalisation, and specifically new transnational communities, are having on racialized definitions of Irishness both in the realm of the state (Irish language requirements, citizenship and racial/ethnic enumeration on the Census) and in terms of the experiences of people themselves in Ireland. I am especially interested in the transnational experiences of people who spend time in China/Ireland and Poland/Ireland.
1 Polish and Chinese Transnationalisms in the Emerald Isle
This project is a qualitative interview project where 50 interviews were conducted (in Polish and Mandarin) with recent immigrants from China and Poland about their work practices, transnational practices, family arrangements, education, migration expectations and experiences of discrimination in Ireland. Two reports have come out of the research thus far mentioned above about Polish workers and Chinese students.
2. Globalization of Love
This project examines how globalization is making the world a smaller place as people, goods and ideas move with greater speed and ease across what once were fairly sturdy national boundaries. Most globalization studies have focused on large scale patterns of social change often analysing macro socio-economic causes and effects of globalization in areas of economic development and political change. Migration studies, those who study the movement of people, have increased awareness of the movement of people for economic reasons across a wide range of countries and social contexts and tracked migration flows from less well off to more affluent countries. But what about those who migrate for other non-economic reasons? What of love? This study interviews international couples (both same sex couples and heterosexual couples), where one partner is from a different country to the other, in order to find out how globalization is impacting intimate relationships and social networks created between people.
The project contributes to the literatures on migration, globalization and love by examining how people actually live their intimate and daily lives in global ways.
3. Transnational Media Practices of Polish and Chinese Migrants in Ireland
(with Dr. Aphra Kerr and Dr. Gavan Titley; Katarzyna Kropiwiec and Ying Yun Wang).
4. The Experience of Discrimination in Ireland
(with Dr. Helen Russell and Emma Quinn, ESRI).
I am a member of the Politics of Global Change and the Knowledge Society clusters within the department of Sociology and a research associate of the National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analysis (NIRSA).
I am helping to supervise MA and PhD students in the areas of: Bodies and Disabilities, Adolescent Bodies, Multiculturalism in Ireland, and Intermarriage and I would welcome PhD students wanting to study in the areas of: race/ethnicity, mixed race, racialization, racial states, beauty, children, and interraciality through qualitative methodologies.
Publications
Books
Pure Beauty: Judging Race in Japanese American Beauty Pageants - University of Minnesota Press
Book Chapters
"Re-racialising the Irish State through the census, citizenship and language" in Race and State edited by A. and R Lentin available from Cambridge Scholars Press.
"Miss Tomodachi Meets Mainstream America: Japanese American Beauty Pageants as Cultural and Symbolic Productions" edited by Dave, Shilpa, Tasha Oren, and Leilani Nishime. APA Pop: New Directions in Asian Pacific American Cultural Studies. New York University Press, forthcoming. 2004.
"Tracing Race to a Multiracial Majority in the Japanese American Community" in The Politics of Multiraciality edited by Heather Dalmage, State University of New York Press. May 2002.
"Eligible to be Japanese American: Counting on Multiraciality in Japanese American Basketball Leagues and Beauty Pageants" in Contemporary Asian American Communities: Intersections and Divergences edited by Linda Trinh Vo and Rick Bonus, Temple University Press.
"Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Mapping Discussions of Feminism, Race and Beauty on Mixed Race Japanese American Women", in The Sum of Our Parts: Mixed-Heritage Asian Americans edited by Teresa Williams-Leon and Cynthia Nakashima, Temple University Press. 1996
"Changing Face, Changing Race: The Making and Remaking of Race in the Japanese American and African American Communities." in Root, Maria P.P. The Multiracial Experience: Racial Borders as the New Frontier, Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications. Pg. 227-244.
Articles
(2006) "Re-racialising the Irish State through the census, citizenship and language" in Race and State edited by A. and R Lentin available from Cambridge Scholars Press.
"Miss Tomodachi Meets Mainstream America: Japanese American Beauty Pageants as Cultural and Symbolic Productions" edited by Dave, Shilpa, Tasha Oren, and Leilani Nishime. APA Pop: New Directions in Asian Pacific American Cultural Studies. New York University Press, forthcoming. 2004.
"Tracing Race to a Multiracial Majority in the Japanese American Community" in The Politics of Multiraciality edited by Heather Dalmage, State University of New York Press. May 2002.
"Eligible to be Japanese American: Counting on Multiraciality in Japanese American Basketball Leagues and Beauty Pageants" in Contemporary Asian American Communities: Intersections and Divergences edited by Linda Trinh Vo and Rick Bonus, Temple University Press. 2001.
"Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Mapping Discussions of Feminism, Race and Beauty on Mixed Race Japanese American Women", in The Sum of Our Parts: Mixed-Heritage Asian Americans edited by Teresa Williams-Leon and Cynthia Nakashima, Temple University Press. 1996
"Changing Face, Changing Race: The Making and Remaking of Race in the Japanese American and African American Communities." in Root, Maria P.P. The Multiracial Experience: Racial Borders as the New Frontier, Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications. Pg. 227-244.
Teaching
Introduction to Social Research (2nd year)
Social Worlds of Children (2nd year)
Multicultural Ireland? (3rd year)
Sociological Teaching and Learning (PhD students)
Professional Membership
Sociological Association of Ireland.
American Sociological Association
Association for Asian American Studies.
Other Staff at the CSWE
- Dr. John O’ Brennan
- Dr. Christian Noack
- Prof. Dennis Pringle
- Prof. Richard Vincent Comerford
- Prof. Sean Ó Riain
- Dr. Adam Drazin
- Dr. Aphra Kerr
- Dr. Darragh Farrell
- Dr. John Paul Newman
- Dr. Patty A. Gray
- Dr Angela Byrne
- Dr Bora A. Isyar
- Aisling Regan
- David Jo Murphy
- Pól O Beaglaóich
- Seamus Coll
- Stephan Vormann
- Zsuzsanna Zarka
