Sunmin Kim
Assistant Professor
Appointments
Assistant Professor of Sociology
Area of Expertise
race,
immigration,
minority politics,
public opinion,
historical sociology,
sociology of knowledge,
quantification ,
Asian American studies
Biography
As a sociologist, I am primarily interested in examining the nexus between race, immigration, and national belonging through the lens of knowledge production. While often understood as self-evident, categories such as race, ethnicity, and citizenship are socially constructed through the work of social scientists, government officials, and activists. These actors engage in a collective intellectual endeavor to define who is regarded as different from whom and how they should be treated. Employing archival work, survey analysis, and in-depth interviews, I study how their work manifests in different domains, such as the social sciences, immigration law, public opinion, and electoral politics.
To this end, I have written about topics such as race and immigration policy, Asian American politics and identity, the construction of public opinion, and methods of historical sociology. My first book, The Unruly Facts of Race: The Politics of Knowledge Production in the Early Twentieth-Century Immigration Debate, was published in 2025 by the University of Chicago Press. I am currently working on a second book project, which looks at the role of social science research in the World War II Japanese American concentration camps.
I teach courses on contemporary social theory (SOCY 16: Constructing Social Theory), immigration (SOCY 48: Politics of Immigration), minority politics (SOCY 76: Race, Politics, and Power), and the technology of quantification (SOCY 77: Sociology of Data and Algorithms).
Education
B.A. Seoul National University
M.A. Seoul National University
M.A. University of California, Berkeley
Ph. D. University of California, Berkley
Taught Courses
Publications
Kim, Sunmin. 2025. The Unruly Facts of Race: The Politics of Knowledge Production in the Early Twentieth Century Immigration Debate. The University of Chicago Press. Link
김선민. 2025. "부르디외 정치사회학의 재구성": 「구별짓기」와 「국가에 관하여」를 잇는 정당성과 인지가치성 개념. 「한국사회학」 59(4): 317-355. (Kim, Sunmin. 2025. "Reconstructing Bourdieusian Political Sociology: Legitimacy and Legibility in Distinction and On the State" Korean Journal of Sociology 59(4): 317-355). Link
Kim, Sunmin, and Daniel Lin. 2025. "Collective Past as a Community-building Initiative: Teaching Asian American Studies through the History of Student Activism." Journal of Asian American Studies 28(3): 446-463. Link
Choi, Carolyn, and Sunmin Kim. 2025. "Category Traversing: Early Korean Immigrants Eluding the U.S. State." Ethnic and Racial Studies. Link.
Kim, Sunmin. 2024. "Blinded by the Facts: Unintended Consequences of Racial Knowledge Production in the Dillingham Commission (1907-1911)." Theory and Society 53(2): 425-464. Link
Kim, Sunmin and Taeku Lee. 2024. "Making Opinions Public: Polling and Democratic Responsiveness in South Korea." Politics and Society 52(4): 515-546. Link.
Kim, Sunmin. 2023. "Edward A. Ross." (Presidential Biography in the American Sociological Association Website) Link
Kim, Sunmin. 2023. "Heterogeneity in "Asian American." Footnotes 51(3). Link
Kim, Sunmin. 2021. "Fault Lines among Asian Americans: Convergence and Divergence in Policy Opinions." RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of Social Sciences 7(2): 46-67 Link
Lara-Milan, Armando, Brian Sargent, and Sunmin Kim. 2020. "Theorizing with Archives: Contingency, Mistakes, and Plausible Alternatives." Qualitative Sociology 43(3): 345-365. Link
Kim, Sunmin. 2019. "Rethinking Models of Minority Political Participation: Inter- and Intra-group Variation in Political "Styles." The Du Bois Review: Social Science Research On Race 16(2): 489-510. Link
Lara-Milan, Armando, Brian Sargent, and Sunmin Kim. 2019. "Where is the Archive in Historical Sociology? The Case for Ethnographic Dispositions." Trajectories 30. Link
Lee, Taeku, and Sunmin Kim. 2018. "The Mechanics of Immigration Polls: A Review." Public Opinion Quarterly 82(1):148-170. Link
Works in Progress
Domesticating the Racial Other: Social Science in the WWII Japanese American Concentration Camps (Book project in progress)
"Limits of Facts-Based Advocacy: Immigration Politics Past and Present." (revised and resubmit)
"Assimilation in Market and Politics: Exit and Voice for Children of Imimgrants."
"Quantifying the Inscrutable: The Question of Japanese American Loyalty During the Internment" (with Hyunsik Chun)
"Boundary-Making across 22-OECD Countries: A Multi-Level Latent Class Approach" (with Inkwan Chung)
"The Heterogeneity among Asian Americans" (with Nolan Yee '25)
Selected Works & Activities
"Asian American Student Activism at Dartmouth College" (a student web exhibit from SOCY 76 Winter 2023: Race, Power, and Politics) Link
Contact
