• Women's Studies Review
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.73-109
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• 2010

The cultural pluralism on which more and more emphasis is put in the globalized cultural environment, takes local identity as a crucial index for the cultural exchange on the global level, but at the same time it results in transforming individual regions/places into a homogeneous space, as it forces the local identity itself to fit into the standardized global perspective. In this context I focus on two art projects that are related to 'Dongducheon', a town that houses the U. S. Second Infantry Division. These projects attract specific attention due to the fact that Dongducheon is a significant place with very 'thick' cultural identity: it reveals that modernization in Korea took place in intersection of nationalism, patriarchy and gender/sexuality postcolonial (military) culture. With these two Dongducheon related art projects (Donglyung Kim) and (Eunyoung Jeong) as excellent examples of site-specific art practice, this paper asks what it means to keep the historicity of disappearing local space/place in the global era. And how is it possible to 'represent' an extremely gendered/sexualized place like Dongducheon. This should be examined from a postcolonial feminist perspective. Since emancipation from Japanese occupation Dongducheon has been an island or an outside space in the nation-state Korea. This becomes more complicated, as now mostly women from the Philippines or former Soviet countries are working in the nightclubs in Doungducheon. and are feminist activist experiments to make the place with its residents to be seen and heard in proper a way of mourning, recognition and communication. shows the 'new' kijich'on women as those who are daring to be on an 'Odyssey' for a better life as they run everyday life in Dongducheon, working in clubs, doing laundry, bearing children, going to mass; tries to help them to be heard and felt, while it gathers sounds on the street or at mass and shows the doors or narrow alleys which lead to the their rooms. It aims to mourn the dead kijich'on women and to represent the precarious life of the present migrant kijich'on women, as it shows no faces.

• Journal of Popular Narrative
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.135-174
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• 2020

The article focuses on the student activism experience of the 1990s and 2010s and on the accumulation of everyday experiences created by the conditions of the 2010s against the backdrop of differences in how the composition of 'we' is portrayed in oral narrative. What stands out in the 90s oral narratives on student activism experiences, which were compiled in the 2010s, is the distancing of the culture of student activism at that time. In the words of speakers who experienced university life in the 1990s, the culture of student activism at the university was created through private relationships, and was, needless to say, considered 'natural'. At the same time, however, the 'natural' is said to be 'abnormal' or 'strange' in the context of the 2010s in which it is being talked about, and is meant to be an experience with a certain distance from the present speakers. This aspect is associated with the conditions under which the experience of the 90s is being described in the 2010s. The present, which explains past experiences to speakers, was explained after the 2016 candlelight protest and Gangnam Station femicide protest, and is described as a world that is qualitatively different from before, and is located as an opportunity to create a critical distance from past experiences. This qualitative change, which raises suspicions about the homogenous "we", is based on a newly acquired sense of gender sensitivity, living since the mid-2010s, when gentler issues were the biggest topic in Korean society, among others. In the 2010s, the composition of 'we' is no longer understood as a community of people who share any commonality, but as individuals who unite despite numerous differences. This reveals the experiences of those who have already embodied this in their everyday senses in the 2010s. The 'we' they formed should have nothing to do with private relationships, nor was homogeneity considered the most prominent group, so it was nothing that could explain the 'me' at the time of the demonstration and outside of the venue. It was in that context that the relevant experience was described in a cautious manner throughout. This, in turn, raises the need to ask and understand a new sense of student activism and, moreover, social movements and the sense of unity as 'we'. It should also be asked who is the main body of the movement and what is the use of asking it. Soon, the need and meaning of defining the fixed identity of 'we' in the movement should be questioned. Therefore, it should be asked what fixed positions or coordinates can really represent someone's position.

• Journal of Practical Engineering Education
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.205-217
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• 2022

For high school students in Jeonbuk, this study aims to identify the problems caused by outflow of local youth population and their preference factors to enter university in Seoul-metropolitan area, and to draw out the direction of local human resources program, through questionnaire investigation and focused group interview. The main findings are as follows: First, 68.8% of high school students, especially the top grade students prefer to enter university in metropolitan area. The metropolitan cultural characteristics, such as reputation of universities and ranking, openness and anonymity, and urban infrastructure attract students. Second, there is a close relationship between the individual background, growth area - enrollment area - employment area, and the location dependency without return migration is very strong. Third, local human resources program was evaluated as a meaningful activity for high school students, in order to understand the further education and career, and have an interest in local universities. Therefore, it is necessary to discover industries consistent with local identity, create networks, develop and implement programs considering the actual educational conditions. The gender-free program, supplement program for the integrated curriculum, and contents that to supplement science subjects should be developed. Additionally, this issue could be resolved expanding the perspective of balanced national development and improve the local environment to enhance the urban attraction points.

• Journal of Popular Narrative
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.251-276
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• 2020

The purpose of this article is to critically read Globalizing Borderlands Studies in Europe and North America to examine trends in border studies conducted so far in Europe and North America and to discuss the expandability and limitations of the narrative. It introduces a variety of case studies covering the borderlands of Europe and North America from ancient to modern times. It consists of a total of 10 chapters, in addition to the introduction chapter to clarify the purpose and definition of the collaboration and the short conclusion chapter on the prospects for the future of borderlands studies. This volume has some important implications for current borderland research in two main respects. First, it can introduce us we the areas and targets that the leading researchers from European and North American academia (usually the United States') have paid attention to. It also examines the current status of borderland research and predicts whether it will be possible to study various border areas where exist in other regions (especially in Asia) based on accumulating academic achievements, as well as the possibility of expansion of so-called 'globalization'. Second, it introduces the borderland as a conceptual space, beyond the border area as a physical space that is commonly thought of when it comes to 'border'. Cases of "conceptual borderlands" can be applied to a number of topics ranging from an individual's identities to the methods of governance, religions, economies, social institutions, families, labor issues, public health services and gender issues. There are, however, also some questions to be noted in the volume: the lack of consistent use of terminology, which can be considered general problems of collaboration studies; the fact that the authors still tend to understand borderlands within the imperialist discourse, perhaps because of their academic background is situated mainly in Europe and North America; the borderlands cases described here as the areas of conflict and struggle only. Nevertheless, the book is of significance in that it suggests a possibility of various borderlands studies and helps us to have better understanding of the current geopolitical situation imposed on the Korean Peninsula, which is located on the borderland between the continental and maritime powers.

• Issues in Feminism
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.149-206
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• 2018

This essay is focused on finding women's voice in oral narratives of social memory of national violence and resistance. The books of oral narratives of women who had experienced the national violence and participated in the resistance through historic events such as 5.18, have been published recently. This study is based on the materials that have interviewed women experienced the historic event '5.18' in Gwangju. In this study, there are analyses of the materials of the memory of violence and resistance of '5.18', which have contained the texts written by intellectual males and the oral narratives of females directly involved. So far, the memory and experience of women have not been presented in its entirety in the field of social discourse of '5.18'. In the field women's words were translated in men's words, so the real words disappeared and in the end remained unspoken words. And besides, the existence of women are substituted with the limited images (for example women's body destroyed) presented by men's words in memorial materials. In narratives of '5.18', women are reduced to the images of bodies destroyed by national violence. The destroyed bodies are places for exhibition and disclosure of national violence. Women are not presented as the subjects of the social resistance in oral or written narratives of '5.18'. The images of females are only vehicles to urge the male subjects to resist against unjust violence. In this context, men are interpreted for the protectors of sisters, daughters, wives. Since 1980s, the symbol of '5.18 Gwangju' has represented the most ideal community in Korean society. But women have been on the borderline or outside of the community in fact. However, women intend to construct themselves as the subjects of resistance through the spoken words. They have tried to make the politic places for themselves in the social field by speaking and speaking constantly. The desire to speak out is becoming stronger for women, so these days more words are spoken by more women and more oral narratives made by women are revealed in social discoursive field. So the place for women's voice is expanding in social memorial field of '5.18'.