Episode Notes

Research Interests

• International migration (ex. post-migration integration and settlement experiences of immigrants and international students)
• Sociology of work and occupations
• Gender and professions
• Population health and well-being

Selected Publications

Learn about Eugena’s influences

• Tracey Adams (Professor, Western University)
• Andrew Huberman (Stanford School of Medicine)
• Andrew Huberman Lab
• William Cockerham (Sociology professor)

Learn about Eugena’s interests

• Pierre Bourdieu
• Max Weber
• Korean-Canadian fusion style cooking
• Advanced calculus (open-access textbook)

Transcript

Beth: Welcome to the Social Profs Podcast with your hosts Beth Torrens and Kristy Buccieri. This is the podcast where we attempt to turn teaching inside out by engaging in conversations outside the classroom with faculty, community members, and Trent student alumni. Our goals with these conversations are to learn more about the benefits of a criminology or sociology degree and to talk about the ways that students can get more involved at Trent and in the community. We will also do a deep dive with some Trent professors to learn more about their approaches to teaching, what drives their research, and a few fun facts you can only learn when you turn teaching inside out.

Kristy: Dr. Eugena Kwon is an assistant professor in the department of sociology who studies and teaches about pressing social issues such as work and immigrant. On this episode of the Social Profs we talk with Eugena about the mentorship and support that has influenced her research, her love of cooking, and why she thinks BTS is a must have on the guest list of any dinner party. Eugena, thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate your time.

Eugena: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me today

Kristy: We’re wondering if you could talk to us a bit about the burning question that drives your research, and what got you interested in trying to answer it?

Eugena: Yeah, so um I’m a researcher that focuses primarily on migration work and health, and given my broad research interests within these areas, it is actually, to be honest with you, a very challenging to pinpoint one burning question, but I guess in general my research question has been around the post-migration experiences of immigrants and international students. So just to expand a little bit about my research, to be very quick, immigrants go through various challenges, particularly really to work and employment, such as having their skills devalued, experiencing in racism, discriminations at work, and so forth. And similarly, international students also experience various challenges, some related to their academics, but also in regards to their career trajectories, basically transitioning from their school to work. So, such challenges may closely also influence their post-migration lifestyle, health and wellbeing as well. So, it’s not just about the economic integration, and this actually is very closely also tied to other aspects of well-being for immigrants and international students. And as successful immigrant integration entails that all aspects of integrations are met, including economic, social and cultural and health aspect, it’s really important for us to examine how these aspects are intertwined and simultaneously shape their post-migration experiences in Canada. So that is sort of my broad research interest and it all, like one burning question is really related to immigrants and international students and their post migration experiences.

Beth: That’s certainly a lot to cover with kind of that one burning question, but very important topics and certainly dealing with topics or issues around immigration that can be difficult for people to experience and perhaps difficult for them to talk about as part of the research process. So as a bit of a follow-up, how do you handle teaching or sharing research findings about difficult topics?

Eugena: Yeah, so I think one of the most difficult yet important topic to teach and research is on race at the city and other topics really to marginalize population. So I do think that it creates a positive synergy when instructors integrate their research into their teaching, basically bringing our expertise into the classroom. And as an immigration scholar, I also try to do this whenever I can. However, I’m very cautious of this process as someone who is also an immigrant myself. So I’m an immigrant from South Korea, so being an immigrant myself, I also felt that it’s important to consider my positionality, which is important in the research process, but also when I’m teaching and sharing research findings with students. So while acknowledging that it’s inevitable that the background of myself may affect certain parts of the research process, I make constant efforts to be reflexive and objective as possible, especially in ensuring that my values and beliefs from my immigrant background basically do not impinge on the interpretation of the results and how I portray certain findings of the research. Similarly, when teaching too, I think I was making similar ongoing efforts to be mindful of all of this and to handle the challenging and sensitive topics on immigrants or racial ethnic minorities with having all of this in mind.

Beth: So, in thinking a bit more about your teaching, what is your favourite lecture or topic to cover in one of your classes?

Eugena: Yeah, so I do really like anything related to the research methodology. So, this is because of two reasons, um so first, I think social scientists don’t usually start off by defining ourselves as like qualitative or like quantitative researcher. Rather, I think most of us, at least this was the case for myself, we start off with the sociological inquiry that I would like to tackle and further explore and kind of stick to the methodology that we think that I will best address it. So, I really like to show students this process. And second, I also like to further show students how applicable the social science research skills are in real life. So further extending to show how students how they can apply their methodological skills such as in different work positions or in various different industries that may not be so obvious for sociology students. That is something that I really enjoy going over with my students and I do try my best to kind of integrate this in most of my classes. So I really like teaching students about the application aspect of conducting social science research.

Beth: And how do you think that measures up to students and their favorite topic in some of your classes?

Eugena: Yeah, so I’m hoping that students enjoy this, like, enjoy, I mean, like, I hope that students enjoy my emphasis on research methods, but I’ve been recently getting a lot of feedback from students about my course on immigrant integration policy. So, it’s actually a social policy class, but we have special topics every term and um for the past two years, I’ve been focused on immigrant integration policy in Canada in this social policy class. So, there are not that many courses on immigration at Trent from what I’ve heard. And several students have told me that it was their first exposure to these types of topics. So, it was a very pleasant feedback to hear that I’ve kind of provided this diversity in terms of course offerings. And it was great to hear that some students really enjoyed learning more about immigrant integration and sentiment policies in Canada.

Kristy: Really interesting and a shout out I think for students to check out the course if they’re interested and you know can get a chance to learn more about your research interests and hopefully in a fourth year you get a bit more discussion and seminar based.

Eugena: Yeah, I hope so too.

Kristy: We’re wondering along those lines because sociologists like to get together, we like to talk. If you could bring people together if you were having a dinner party and you could invite anyone you wanted, academic, celebrity, other people, politicians, activists, businesspeople. Anyone who is alive or not, who would you invite and why?

Eugena: So, starting with the academic, I’ll invite Tracy Adams, who was my PhD supervisor. So, I always say that Tracy is my mother in academia, so, she has been such an amazing mentor and I honestly couldn’t have gone through my graduate program without her mental support in all aspects and also academic support too. But beyond the academic support, she has just taught me how to be a great person overall and also to be a how to be a good mentor to students. So, she’s one academic that I would invite to my dinner party. And one celebrity, I’ll invite BTS, having that, given that I’m not a huge fan of BTS or anything, but I do really think that they hold a significant symbolic role in their ability to bridge cultural gaps and foster diversity through cross-cultural exchange, promoting transnational. So I’m kind of sounding like I’m a really sociological person in this way, but that’s sort of the sense that I got when I was seeing all these talk about BTS over the past couple of years. And two other people, they’re actually both academics to my apologies. So, first one is Andrew Huberman, and second person is William Cockerham. So, Andrew Huberman, he’s an American neuroscientist, and he’s a professor at the Stanford School of Medicine. So, he’s a host of Huberman Lab podcast, so he discusses science and science-based tools for everyday life. So, it’s often difficult for academics to engage and interact with a broader audience. So, I’m really, I really admire his impact and his impact is quite impressive that he can do this to broader audience as an academic. So, I’d love to learn more about how to do this. And second, William Cockerham, he’s a sociologist that proposed the mid-range theory called health lifestyle theory, which defines health lifestyles as a collective patterns of health-related behaviors based on choices from options available to people according to their life chances. So basically, his reference to life chances originates from Weber, and Cockerham was also heavily influenced by Bourdieu concept of habitus. So, whereas individual factors have been a major focus in lifestyle-related research in the past, I would like to have dinner with Dr.

Cockerham and hear more about his health lifestyle theory, which has been, I think has been influential in raising the importance of scholars to consider the structural factors that shape one’s lifestyle, help them well-being. So kind of shifting away from the previous focus on individualistic aspect and more considerations of the structural aspect. So those are some of the people that I would like to invite for dinner.

Kristy: That would make for a very interesting dinner conversation. We’re wondering as well if you were actually planning the dinner, what would you serve?

Eugena: Yeah, so I really like to cook and I actually, this is something unrelated but actually related. So I also even like competed at like cooking competition like back in the days when I was in graduate school. But anyways, I really like to cook fusion dishes. So I think I’ll cook something that is Korean-Canadian fusion.

Beth: That sounds like a very entertaining dinner and a very delicious dinner as well.

[Music]

Beth: So our next series of questions are flipping the script a little bit. It’s a bit of a pop quiz for you. And we’re moving on to our rapid fire round. So we are going to give you 10 questions and you can give us 10 answers. They don’t have to be super long. One or two words is fine. If you do want to elaborate, that is okay too. But are you ready for the rapid fire?

Eugena: Okay.

[Music]

Beth: All right, rapid fire number one. What is your favorite memory from when you were a student?

Eugena: Exams. And can I actually, can I justify my response?

Beth: Sure, if you want.

Eugena: No, I’m saying exams because I actually hated exams by looking back nowadays, like that was my favorite memory because I always went to this Chinese food truck after my exam. And I guess maybe eating that Chinese food and kind of like relaxing after the exam, that was like my favorite moment. So I guess I’m not just focusing on the exam part, but things that come after running the exam.

Beth: Celebrating that hurdle and your success at movement past it. Nice. What is your favorite thing to do on the weekend?

Eugena: Um, cafe hopping.

Beth: Nice. As an academic, what is something you can’t live without?

Eugena: A laptop We’re just one body.

Beth: Is there a favorite TV show, podcast, or movie that you have?

Eugena: Yeah, I mentioned this already, but my favorite podcast is Andrew Huberman’s podcast.

Beth: What advice would you give your past student self?

Eugena: Take things a little bit easy. I think I sort of; I think I’ve kind of struggled and kind of tried too hard for everything. like to give myself, so the advice that I would like to give my past self is to take things a little bit easy. Think of life as more of a marathon than a sprint.

Kristy: If you could instantly have any skill, party trick, or talent, what would it be?

Eugena: Teleporting.

Kristy: Where would you go?

Eugena: I’ll actually want to teleport to the past.

Kristy: Interesting. Any time in particular?

Eugena: I actually want to teleport to when I just graduated, I mean, I graduated high school. So before going into university, I kind of looking back, I kind of wished if I had like a gap year to kind of explore the world a little bit more. I was one of those typical sort of Asian immigrant children who are just all about like school, school, school. So, I think if I go back, I think I’ll love to have a gap year somewhere. Yeah, and if you could teleport, you could go all kinds of places in that gap year.

Kristy: What course or subject did you not take as a student that you wish you could learn more about now?

Eugena: Advanced calculus, so I sort of, I don’t meet that stereotype that all Asians are good at math, so I was horrible in any STEM related field, so I avoided all of the math or sciences. I kind of wish that I had taken a little bit more math classes looking back now.

Kristy: Who do you admire?

Eugena: I actually admire my parents. So, I really thank them for allowing me to sort of live a little bit better life here in Canada. So, they have struggled a lot coming to Canada, kind of starting all from the scratch. So, I do really admire them for all of the hard work that they have put in to allow me to live a better life here. So yeah, I admire my parents.

Kristy: Nice. Cat, dog, fish, bird or lizard?

Eugena: Oh, such an easy question, dog.

Kristy: And if you weren’t working as an academic, what would you be doing?

Eugena: Yeah, yeah, actually, my parents asked me this question very frequently and I always say I don’t want to imagine. I think I was born to be an academic.

Beth: Nice. Well, you were born to be an academic and you have survived the rapid-fire round of questions. Thank you very much for joining us today, Eugena. We really appreciate it.

Eugena: Yeah, thank you so much for the invitation. It was a pleasure to join you guys today.

[Music]