I am a political anthropologist, writer, and educator. In South Korea, I study how state time and nationalist imaginaries shape access, belonging, and opportunity for North Korean migrants. In the U.S., I look at consumption and politics in the media practices of the North Korean diaspora. I have written about gendered migration between North Korea and China both in policy-facing and fictional form. More of my recent published work can be found below. 

PUBLICATIONS

UM-LO, Noël. 2026. “Brutal Fantasies: Imagining North Korea in the Long cold war.” Book review. Journal of Asian Studies, 85(3): 743-745.

UM-LO, Noël. 2026. “Your father bought me for 8,000 yuan.” Anthropology and humanism, 51(1): e70077.

Um-lo, Noël & Eunsook Jang. 2025. “Slipping through the Cracks in South Korea: The Uncertain Futures for the Children of North Korean Defectors.” Migration Information Source, Migration Policy Institute.

Um-lo, noël. 2020. “Biopower, mediascapes, and the politics of fear in the age of covid-19.”City & Society, 32(2): 247-253.

SELECT and upcoming presentations

2026. “‘One maeum:’ Toward a new kingdom and a new korea.'“ American educational research association (AERA), Annual meeting (Apr. 23-27).

2026. “Consent and sexual violence in contemporary transnational east asia” (panel). Association for asian studies (AAS), Annual meeting (Mar. 12-15).

2025. “Precarity and Possibility: Migrant Youth, Transnational Schooling, and the Politics of Belonging” (PANEL). American Anthropological Association (AAA), Annual Meeting (Nov. 22-24).

2025. “Invited to lunch with the president: selective visibility and the politics of recognition among North Korean displaced youth in South Korea.” Teachers college, fifth biennial conference on anthropology and education (oct. 10-11).

2025. “Divine selection: the sacred and secular politics of Korean unification.” Society for anthropology of religion, biennial conference (jun. 21-23).

2024. “Micro-unification in the shadow of nuclear war: north korean escapee youth and south korean resettlement schooling.” American anthropological Association (AAA), Annual meeting (Nov. 20-23).

2021. “Legacies of minjok and neo-confucianism in the early DPRK apparatus.” Oxford university, Faculty of oriental studies: international history of east asia (dec. 1).