• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.181-214
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• 2015

This study analyzed the characteristics of the politics of technoscience and governance in South Korea, taking advantage of the policy changes on the stem cell research after Hwang's affair. In spite of generally accepted conventional wisdom that stem cell research had been suffering 'crisis' after the Hwang's affair, South Korea succeeded in developing the first and the largest stem cell product in the world. However, considering the fact that the stem cell research capabilities and technological competitiveness of Korea have been assessed as relatively low compared to the development performance, there is a need to extrapolate how such result could be achieved. To answer these questions, we analyzed changes in the R&D expenditure before and after the scandal and verified the 'crisis of stem cell research' following the reduction of financial support from government. From the analysis of literature on the policy reports and news, we described the process of discourse changes in policy and analyzed the characteristics of the politics of technoscience and governance of stem cell research. This study emphasized that the government R&D and regulation policy play the key roles in the development of stem cell research rather than in the technological competitiveness in South Korea. Furthermore, this study argued that democratic governance still does not work under the policy conditions that technocratic decision-making of stem cell research fails to learn from the Hwang's affairs.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.461-477
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• 2010

Recent environmental issues such as genetically modified organisms, the loss of biodiversity, climate change, and nuclear waste cannot be reduced to a matter of science or society and explained through nature-society dualist approaches because of their complexity and heterogeneity. This paper examines how nature-society dualism has been embedded in science studies and geography and how this dualism can be overcome. Actor-Network Theory as an attempt to overcome this nature-society dualism is appropriate in analysing "strange imbriglio" of biology, politics, technoscience, market, value, ethics and facts that constitute our society by focusing on heterogeneous association, and can contribute to providing a useful framework to solve environmental problems.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.89-103
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• 2011

The recent innovations in technoscience have changed the patterns of everyday lives for women and their politics of identity. Among the various debates on a women's relationship to technoscience, Donna J. Haraway's theory of the cyborg has been one of the most influential, as it provides new modes of conceiving subjectivity as well as new notions of women's shared experiences. For Haraway, the cyborg is an image of a female subject that will lead the future of science and technology as an amalgamation of non-hierarchical differences. This study examines the characteristics and meanings for the distortion, anti-aesthetic body, and clothing in fashion design through the cyborg feminism theory. Characteristics and meanings of the cyborg in fashion designs find their expression through mechanical images, distorted physical transformations, reconstruction of a destructed body, expression of an anatomical and heterogeneous body, and the persona image. Such expressions are not simply an act of distorting and destroying a body image but extending the category of a body, but of going beyond the limit of a real body and create a new body.

• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.1-48
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• 2014

Recently, governance of science and technology emerged as one of most important social problems and as a result it is crucial to understand it in science and technology studies. This article discusses three most important realms in science and technology goverance - research and development, regulation, and social movement - in the concrete Korean contexts. First of all, the Korean state has driven research and development and promoted its commercialization unlike other developed countries. Consequently, this nationalistic view on science disseminated to Korean public and it generated uniformity in research style and organization. Second, science and technology regulations embraced developed countries' policies, leading to its glocalization. As a result, technocratic old governance and new governance including precautionary principle and participatory democracy coexist. Third, the civil society has challenged expertise and state-driven science and technology governance and fueled social movements related to environment, safety, and health issues. The politics of knowledge created by citizens' voluntary participation and collaborative experts made it clear that science and technology should be no longer tool for economic development. In conclusion, we discuss characteristics of science and technology governance in Korea, giving various implication on current research and policy.

• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.199-222
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• 2014

Functional Magnetic Resonance Angiography (fMRA) was a technoscientific innovation that allows scientists to directly view the changes made in the blood vessels of a brain. fMRA was first developed at Neuroscience Research Institute (NRI) in Korea. fMRA mainly utilizes 7 Tesla MRI technology, and NRI is equipped with the instrument. First article on fMRA was published in 2008, and two more papers in 2010 and 2012 consecutively had been published on the newly developed technique. However, fMRA is a competitive technology with existing fMRI. Both techniques capture microvascular changes in a brain, and by doing it, both techniques visualize the cognitive and affective changes. fMRI technology was introduced by Seiji Ogawa in the early 1990's and has been widely used since then. In contrast, fMRA was a newer technology and rather unknown. Developers of fMRA in NRI used series of signifiant-politics in order to make it better known to scientific community as well as public. By resetting the boundaries of existing concept of fMRI, they tried to lower the threshold of a new concept/technique. This case study shows how technoscientists use semiotic strategies governing new technology.