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Gendering discourses of time in South Korean self-help books : the normalisation of a masculine long hours work culture
No full textThis thesis is based on a three-fold project analysing, firstly, the discursive configuration of popular Korean time management texts, secondly, the parameters of their production and political economy, and finally, their audience rec.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo
Gendering discourses of time in South Korean self-help books: the normalisation of a masculine long hours work culture.
Get PDFThis thesis is based on a three-fold project analysing, firstly, the discursive configuration of popular Korean time management texts, secondly, the parameters of their production and political economy, and finally, their audience rec
Neo-liberal Genre, not so Liberal Consumption : When a Japanese ‘Morning Person’ Book Crossed the South Korean Border
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Science, patriotism and discourses of nation and culture: reflections on the South Korean stem cell breakthroughs and scandals
No full textScience, patriotism and discourses of nation and culture : Reflections on the South Korean stem cell breakthroughs and scandals
No full textBio-technological research is refracted through, and has implications for, national and international economies, status, image and networks. Human embryo stem cell research, for example, brings potentially very high financial and reputational rewards, but also can carry great risks. This was dramatically illustrated in the South Korean debacle. Breakthroughs announced in 2004 and 2005 placed South Korea at the cutting edge of this biotechnology. International attention and national celebration was, however, followed by scandal as questions were raised about the ethics and then the scientific validity of some of the work. In this paper we focus on how ideas about nation and culture were mobilized in discussion about South Korea. In particular we highlight how the same 'cultural explanations' were used both to account for stupendous success and then to explain fraudulent failure. From this perspective discourses about culture are treated not as unproblematic statements of fact but as practices in their own right - which travel across South Korean and international contexts for competing strategic ends. We conclude by discussing how the cultural explanation can obscure as much as it reveals, and also how nationalism might be implicated in discussion of cutting edge scientific enterprise not only in (and about) South Korea, but in (and about) other nation states too. Science and culture are always profoundly intertwined - the South Korean case may be an extreme example of 'scientific nationalism', but it has ramifications for thinking about science and society across the world as a whole
Global issues, regional engagement: ‘discussing stem cells in context’ event hosted at the National Assembly for Wales
No full textCOVID-19 Exceptionalism: Explaining South Korean Responses
Get PDFCOVID-19 has presented challenges across the globe that led to a number of shared lessons to be learnt. Yet, we are inundated with comparative accounts that characterize national pandemic responses as inherent and unique to certain nation states, which, we argue, led to COVID-exceptionalism. This article challenges ???cultural??? explanations of South Korea???s ???successful??? responses to COVID-19 crisis. The popular narrative has been that Korea???s cluster-based mitigation strategy was sustained by rigorous contact tracing and mass testing systems, and this was made possible by three distinctive elements of pandemic preparedness: 1) Korean ???culture??? of normalizing face-covering, 2) Korean citizens??? consensus of prioritizing public health to privacy, and 3) Korea???s IT infrastructure enabling efficient digital contact tracing. By debunking the three myths, we demonstrate why neither the Asian ???authoritarian advantages??? thesis nor the counter-argument of ???Asian civility??? adequately captures the reality of Korea???s reaction to the COVID pandemic. The ways in which risks are conceptualized as manageable objects produce particular modes of allocating responsibilities for risk mitigation, when dealing with a relatively unknown virus. COVID-exceptionalism may cause not only the issue of reinforcing ???(East) Asian???/???Western??? stereotypes, but also other problems such as implicitly granting political impunity to those responsible for coordinating COVID-19 responses
orean Media
No full textThe global stem cell scandal widely known as the 'Hwang scandal' was a reminder of the somewhat taken-for-granted fact that the South Korean public is often referenced and addressed as kungmin in media discourse. Kungmin, which means 'South Korean nationals', has considerable purchase in everyday life in South Korea as a constant reminder of nationhood. Using Michael Billig's concept of banal nationalism as the key theoretical linchpin of analysis, this article argues that kungmin was a readily available, powerful rhetorical tool for the uncritically pro-science and profit-driven South Korean media to justify its support for Hwang's stem cell breakthroughs in the name of kungmin. The general public's support for Hwang was framed as a 'natural' response even after the revelation of unethical procurement of human oocysts and scientific fraud. The article also considers how this politicized representation of the South Korean public restricted the opportunities for democratic social debate on this controversial biotechnology
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