Bridget Martin is an urban geographer and political geographer researching the US-Korea alliance through the lenses of land, territory, terrain, and sovereignty. Her research traces the logics, techniques, laws, and ambiguities that made widespread American militarized land dispossessions possible during the US military occupation of southern Korea and during the Korean War, and it critically examines the more recent process of US military land returns in the context of Korea’s highly commodified real estate environment.
During her first year as the SBS Korean Studies Postdoctoral Fellow in the Social Sciences at the Korea Institute in AY21-22, Bridget focused on her book project, Land Power: Real Estate and the US Military in South Korea. In support of the book project, she studied Geographic Information Science at Harvard University’s Center for Geographic Analysis, and she collaborated with other geographers specializing in cartographic and quantitative methods to study US military land returns in Korea. She also revised article manuscripts on Korean War land dispossessions and on contemporary anti-sex work urban planning in camptowns. During the second year of her fellowship in AY22-23, Bridget is continuing to work on her book manuscript, theorizing Korean territory and sovereignty in Korean landscapes dominated by the twin forces of militarization and commodification.
In January 2023, Bridget will join the University of Mississippi campus as Croft Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Korean Studies. The position is partially funded by the Korea Foundation. She will also join the 2023 cohort of the non-resident US-Korea NextGen Scholars Program, a public engagement program for early-career Korea specialists led by Victor Cha and David Kang. Additionally, Bridget will continue to develop programming as co-organizer and co-facilitator of the DMZ Field School, a workshop on field methods and experimental writing for anthropologists and geographers that held its inaugural program in February 2022 with the support of the Research Institute of Korean Studies.
Prior to joining the Harvard University community, Bridget completed her PhD in Geography with a Designated Emphasis in Global Metropolitan Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She was a predoctoral Fellow in the US-Asia Grand Strategy Program at the University of Southern California Korean Studies Institute during her final year of graduate study. Her graduate research was also supported by organizations such as the Korea Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, and the Korean-American Educational Commission (Fulbright Korea). Bridget’s writings have appeared in journals such as the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research and Political Geography.