한국의 난민 학술담론 현재와 미래 - 난민 학술담론에 관한 토픽 모델링 중심 -

초록

This study aims to systematically examine the structure and evolution of refugee-related academic discourse in South Korea. To this end, abstracts from 3,020 refugee-related studies indexed in the Korean Citation Index (KCI) between 2000 and 2025 were analyzed to investigate how refugees have been conceptualized within Korean academic discourse and how these thematic structures have changed over time in response to major social events. Structural Topic Modeling (STM) was employed to identify latent thematic structures, while publication period was incorporated as a covariate to capture temporal dynamics in the discourse. The analysis identified five major topics: (1)migration, North Korean defectors, and diaspora; (2)international norms concerning war and refugee displacement; (3)trauma and conflict among Yemeni and Syrian refugees; (4)refugee law and the discourse of exceptional existence; and (5)international discourse on refugee children and youth in the East Asian context. The findings suggest that refugees have not been understood as a single homogeneous category within Korean academia but have instead been differentially categorized according to diverse social, political, and historical conditions. By simultaneously examining trends in research production and changes in topic prevalence, this study found that Korean refugee scholarship has moved beyond merely reflecting social realities or reproducing internationally established refugee discourses. Rather, it has functioned as a site for critical reflection on prevailing social perspectives and for generating alternative interpretive frameworks. The study demonstrates that refugee discourse in South Korea should be understood as a distinctive process of negotiating the relationship between refugees and the broader social community. This provides an empirical contribution to understanding the evolving intellectual landscape of refugee studies in the Korean context.

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