IMR Book Review Award Recipient: Phi Hong Su
November 1, 2023

International Migration Review
Book Review Award Winner
Dr. Phi Hong Su
The Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS) and International Migration Review (IMR) is proud to announce this year’s recipient of the IMR Book Review Award, Dr. Phi Hong Su, for her book The Border Within: Vietnamese Migrants Transforming Ethnic Nationalism in Berlin.
The award committee, composed of Dr. Thomas Soehl, Associate Professor at McGill University; Dr. Gracia Liu-Farrer, Professor at Waseda University; and Dr. Katharina Natter, IMR Book Review Editor and Senior Assistant Professor at Leiden University, remarked:
“The Border Within is a carefully crafted ethnography of the fascinating case of Vietnamese migrants in Berlin. We were impressed by how the book seems to successfully extrapolate from a very specific, narrow case study to provide innovative, theoretical insights into some of migration studies’ big debates around migrant categories, transnational diaspora dynamics or the link between migration, national identity and state formation. It also struck us as a very valuable book to assign for a qualitative methods class as an example of excellent new work.”
Dr. Su is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Williams College, and is interested in how people rebuild their lives after war and border crossings. Born in Vietnam, she grew up in the San Gabriel Valley and is a first-generation proud product of the California public education system. She has studied, taught, and lived in Berlin and Abu Dhabi. Dr. Su holds a B.A. from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, and a M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles.
The Border Within is available for purchase here: https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=32854