Avner Greif is Professor of Economics and Bowman Family Endowed Professor in Humanities and Sciences at Stanford. His research interests include European economic history: the historical development of economic institutions, their interrelations with political, social and cultural factors and their impact on economic growth. Some of his publications are: "Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy: Lessons from Medieval Trade", Cambridge University Press (March 2006); "Impersonal Exchange without Impartial Law: The Community Responsibility System," Chicago Journal of International Law (2004); "How Do Self-enforcing Institutions Endogenously Change? Institutional Reinforcement and Quasi-Parameters" (with David Laitin), the American Political Science Review (2003); "Analytic Narratives," Oxford University Press, 1998. Avner Greif received his Ph. D. in economics from Northwestern University, and his B.A. in economics and history - from Tel Aviv University.

Anwar Ibrahim was deputy prime minister of Malaysia in the 1990s. He also served as Malaysia's minister of finance. A sharp disagreement with then-Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad led to Anwar's dismissal, prosecution--many would say outright persecution--and imprisonment.

Upon regaining his freedom, Anwar took up his current role as an opposition voice. He is currently a distinguished visiting professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. Since his release he has also held lectureships at St. Anthony's College (Oxford) and the School of Advanced International Studies (Johns Hopkins). He has advised the World Bank on questions of governance and accountability. Recently he was appointed honorary president of AccountAbility, a London-based organization that advocates socially responsible business practices.

This event is co-sponsored by the Southeast Asia Forum at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies.

For many Koreans, their country's "northern regions" are locked in memory and even mystery. Families that once lived in North Korea still think of their lost hometowns with longing and nostalgia. Wherever they have ended up--in South Korea, America, Europe or elsewhere--and in succeeding generations, there remains an unceasing sense of unrequited loss.

It may seem strange, but Westerners who once lived in North Korea--as missionaries, traders, and, oddly enough, refugees--also share something of these sentiments. They think of missionary childhoods, lost stakes in business, Korean friends, and the special physical qualities of the landscape as part of their own emotional experience.

Donald Clark addressed this foreign experience in his book entitled Living Dangerously in Korea: the Western Experience, 1900-1950 (EastBridge, 2003). This lecture is based on materials in the chapters that deal with foreign life in the north, particularly P'yongyang, in the gold mines in the Unsan district, and in the Russian refugee colony on the northeast coast. It is illustrated from family albums of people who lived there in the 1930s.

One aspect of globalization that is receiving increasing scholarly attention is international migration, especially the transnational migration of workers. Practically every country of the world is affected in one way or another as either a sending or a receiving country. There are reportedly more than 500,000 foreigners residing in South Korea, with unskilled transnational migrant workers accounting for about a half of these.

Although the country's reliance on imported foreign labor is likely to continue unabated, the Korean government and society as a whole have been generally intolerant of foreigners living in Korea.

This paper examines various social factors, including the country's record-low fertility rate and rapid aging of its population, that all point to the continuation of labor importation. Such immigration will contribute to the making of a multiethnic Korean society.

The paper then analyzes the cultural factors that account for Koreans' low receptivity to foreigners and argues that it is the cultural ideology of ethnic homogeneity, based on the "one ancestor myth," that fuels an intense pride and stake in cultural uniqueness, linguistic homogeneity, and historical collectivity-sensibilities that government policy reinforces.

Andrew Eungi Kim is an Associate Professor in the Division of International Studies at Korea University and is currently a Visiting Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. He received his Ph. D. in sociology from the University of Toronto in 1996. His primary research interests pertain to cultural studies, sociology of religion, social change, sociology of work, and comparative sociology.

Currently, he is revising two book-length manuscripts for publication: "The Rise of Protestant Christianity in South Korea: Religious and Non-Religious Factors in Conversion" and "Understanding Korean Culture: The Persistence of Shamanistic and Confucian Values in Contemporary Korea."