So Yeon Leem
Dong-A University, College of General Education, Faculty Member
- Sookmyung Women's University, Sookmyung Institute of Global Governance, Faculty Memberadd
본 논문은 세 필자가‘위로의 연구’과정에서 공통적으로 직면했던 현지인의 반대(objections)를 다룬다. 우리의 현지인인 의사와 교수·과학자들은 우리의 연구를 평가하고 비판했으며, 때로는 연구에 대한 제안을 하거나 질문을 던지기도 했다. 이에 본 논문은 현지인의 반대를 저항이나 거부로 부정 혹은 무시하기보다는 더 적극적으로 인류학 일반에 통용될 수 있는 새로운 앎과 성찰의 계기로 삼을 것을 주장하고자 한다. 본논문은... more
본 논문은 세 필자가‘위로의 연구’과정에서 공통적으로 직면했던 현지인의 반대(objections)를 다룬다. 우리의 현지인인 의사와 교수·과학자들은 우리의 연구를 평가하고 비판했으며, 때로는 연구에 대한 제안을 하거나 질문을 던지기도 했다. 이에 본 논문은 현지인의 반대를 저항이나 거부로 부정 혹은 무시하기보다는 더 적극적으로 인류학 일반에 통용될 수 있는 새로운 앎과 성찰의 계기로 삼을 것을 주장하고자 한다. 본논문은 반대를 민족지 연구에 필요한‘장치(device)’로 재평가하여 정식화하기 위한 시도이다. ‘반대의 장치’의 효과는 두 가지이다. 하나는 인류학자의 재현에‘차이’를 만드는 것이고, 다른 하나는 인류학자와 현지인이‘성찰’의 능력과 기회를 공유하는 것이다. 이 글에서는 각각 연구 내용, 연구방법, 연구 가치에 대한 현지인의 반대 사례를 예로들어 각 필자가‘반대의 장치’의 효과로 어떠한 차이를 생산할 수 있었고 어떻게 현지인과 함께 성찰할 수 있었는지 보이고자 했다. 마지막 결론에서는 앞으로 반대를 장착하고 나아갈 민족지 연구자를 위해 반대의 대상, 계기, 시점, 장소 그리고 형식에 따라 반대의 장치를 유형화한다. 연구자와 현지인이 함께 성찰적인 연구의 주체가 되어 더 많은 차이를 만들어 내는 민족지 연구를 지향하는 연구자에게 반대는 매우 유용한 장치가될 것이다.
본 논문은 장기간의 현장연구에 근거하여 성형의료시장에서 상담실장이라고 불리는 비의료인이 환자와 의사 사이에서 매개적인 역할을 하고 있을 뿐만 아니라 의료윤리와 의사의 권위에 도전적인 존재 일 수 있음을 보여준다. 일부 사회과학 연구들이 성형의료산업의 비윤리성이나 상업성을 비판해 온 것과는 달리 본 연구는 사설의료시장에서 발견되는 상업성과 이질성을 현실로 인정하고 윤리적 자원으로 삼을 것을 제안한다. 의료현장에 개입하는... more
본 논문은 장기간의 현장연구에 근거하여 성형의료시장에서 상담실장이라고 불리는 비의료인이 환자와 의사 사이에서 매개적인 역할을 하고 있을 뿐만 아니라 의료윤리와 의사의 권위에 도전적인 존재 일 수 있음을 보여준다. 일부 사회과학 연구들이 성형의료산업의 비윤리성이나 상업성을 비판해 온 것과는 달리 본 연구는 사설의료시장에서 발견되는 상업성과 이질성을 현실로 인정하고 윤리적 자원으로 삼을 것을 제안한다. 의료현장에 개입하는 비의료인의 역할을 고려함으로써 의사나 간호사 혹은 환자 개인에 한정된 기존 의료윤리의 한계를 보완할 수 있으며, 이것을 의료윤리교육에 포함시킨다면 의사들이 일상적으로 겪는 갈등을 다루는 데 더욱 효과적으로 쓰일 수 있을 것이다. 본 연구는 사회과학적 연구로부터 의료윤리적 함의를 이끌어 내려는 시도로서 이러한 학제적 접근은 의사와 환자 사이의 다양한 관계뿐만 아니라 의사와 환자 사이를 매개하는 다양한 존재들을 발견하게 해준다. 의료윤리가 의사만의 문제가 아니라 다양한 주체들의 윤리적인 판단이 요구되는 일임을 보인다는 점에서, 이러한 학제적 윤리 연구는 의료윤리의 실효성을 높일 뿐만 아니라 의사와 의료행위에 대한 사회적 인식을 개선하는 데에도 일조할 수 있다.
Research Interests: Sociology and Transgender
본 연구는 세 연구자의 현장 연구 경험을 통해‘위로의 연구’의 난관이 현장에서 어떻게 구체적으로 드러나는지를 보여 준다. 그리고 난관을 넘어서거나 우회하거나 그것들과 타협함으로써 학습해 온 현장 연구기술(skills)을 명료화하는 작업에 착수했다. 또한 ‘위로의 연구’의 난관과 마주함으로써 나타나는 인류학 현장 연구의 전제들이 갖고 있는 문제도 함께 제시함으로써 후속 연구가 개선해야 할 지점을 제시한다. 이러한 논의를... more
본 연구는 세 연구자의 현장 연구 경험을 통해‘위로의 연구’의 난관이 현장에서 어떻게 구체적으로 드러나는지를 보여 준다. 그리고 난관을 넘어서거나 우회하거나 그것들과 타협함으로써 학습해 온 현장 연구기술(skills)을 명료화하는 작업에 착수했다. 또한 ‘위로의 연구’의 난관과 마주함으로써 나타나는 인류학 현장 연구의 전제들이 갖고 있는 문제도 함께 제시함으로써 후속 연구가 개선해야 할 지점을 제시한다. 이러한 논의를 위해서 본 연구는‘위로의 연구’의 난관으로 제시된 접근, 태도, 윤리, 방법의 문제와 직접 대면한 현장 연구의 경험을 순서대로 제시했다. ‘위로의 연구’의 어려움은 우리의 현장 연구 과정에서 오히려 옮겨 다녀야 할 장소를 늘리고, 피면담자와 관계를 맺을 기회를 주기도 했다. 현장 연구 과정에서 나타난 문제가 예상과는 다르게 면담자와의 협상과 현장과의 타협을 통해서 창조적으로 해결되기도 했다. 또한 이 과정에서 기존 민족지 연구에 스며들어 있던 몇 가지 전제, 폐쇄성과 개방성의 이분법(접근), 강자와 약자의 이분법(태도), 옹호와 폭로의 이분법(윤리), 참여관찰과 문헌 조사의 이분법(방법론)이 드러났고 바로 그 전제들이‘위로의 연구’의 난관을 더 어렵게 한다는 점을 발견할 수 있었다. 민족지 연구를‘위로의 연구’라는 실험장에 던져 넣은 우리의 시도가 이전에는 보이지 않던 인류학 연구의 전제들을 수면 위로 부상시켰다는 점에서 이 실험의 의의를 찾을 수 있다.
Research Interests: Art History and Art
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인류학자들은 증거라는 용어 자체를 자주 사용하지는 않지만, 선호하는 증거양식은 암묵적으로 존재한다. 예를 들어, 인류학자들은 구체적인 일화(episode 혹은 vignette)를 설득력 있는 증거로 간주한다. 환유법에 대한 신념(Engelke 2008: S13)이라고 부를 만한 이런 경향은 인류학 바깥에서 인류학적 논증을 특성화할 때 자주 언급된다. 인류학 내에서도 이론적 입장에 따라 선택하는 증거양식은 다른데, 어떤... more
인류학자들은 증거라는 용어 자체를 자주 사용하지는 않지만, 선호하는 증거양식은 암묵적으로 존재한다. 예를 들어, 인류학자들은 구체적인 일화(episode 혹은 vignette)를 설득력 있는 증거로 간주한다. 환유법에 대한 신념(Engelke 2008: S13)이라고 부를 만한 이런 경향은 인류학 바깥에서 인류학적 논증을 특성화할 때 자주 언급된다. 인류학 내에서도 이론적 입장에 따라 선택하는 증거양식은 다른데, 어떤 인류학자들은 통계적 수치가 갖는 일반화의 힘을 신뢰하는 반면 다른 학자들은 정량적 증거에 당연하게 부여되는 객관성을 의심하면서 통계자료에 거리를 두려 한다. 이렇게 선호하는 증거의 종류가 차이가 나지만, 인류학자들은 자신의 민족지가 인식적 권위를 얻기 위해서는 기본적으로 증거의 질이 중요하다고 생각한다. This paper highlights the ways in which natives employ the concept of evidence in the field and attempts to explore new possibilities of its concept. Although evidences are consistently located in questions that anthropologists encounter during their research, its concept itself has been rarely discussed in earnest. By focusing on three cases of fieldwork, which study debates and practices of scientists, medical doctors, and engineers, respectively, this paper looks at how those natives produce, use, and justify their evidences. As a result, the understanding of their evidences has e...
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This study deals with natives' 'objections' that three authors commonly encountered while they 'studied up' a plastic surgery clinic, mad-cow diseases debates, and disaster prevention research... more
This study deals with natives' 'objections' that three authors commonly encountered while they 'studied up' a plastic surgery clinic, mad-cow diseases debates, and disaster prevention research centers, respectively. Our natives - surgeons, university professors, and scientists - reviewed, questioned, criticized, and. sometimes, made suggestions on our own researches. On the one hand, researches affected natives and exposed their 'new' voices, which, on the other hand, transformed researchers and their studies. Based on our own experiences of objections, this paper proposes natives' objections as opportunities to reach new kinds of anthropological knowledge and reflexivity, rather than as what can be disregarded as natives' resistances and rejections to our ethnographic works. This paper is an attempt to appreciate and formalize objections as 'devices' necessary to ethnographic research in general. 'Objections as devices' have two effects: one is to make 'differences' in anthropological representation and another is to share 'reflexive' abilities with natives. The main body of this paper shows how authors produced differences in and reflected with natives on their own research in terms of its contents, methods, and values through 'objections as devices.' As a conclusion, the last section presents components of 'objections as devices' - targets, triggers, junctures, sites, and forms - to those who are equipped with objections. This study suggests that objections are useful devices for ethnographers who aim to become reflexive research subjects with natives and create more differences in their fields and researches.
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Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork at a plastic surgery clinic, this article shows that non-medical professionals called “patient managers” have played mediating roles between patients and doctors and possibly challenged medical... more
Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork at a plastic surgery clinic, this article shows that non-medical professionals called “patient managers” have played mediating roles between patients and doctors and possibly challenged medical ethics and authorities. Unlike previous social studies of plastic surgery, rather than simply criticizing the unethical aspects of the private medical market, this study starts from their realities and considers them as resources for medical ethics. By taking the roles of non-medical professionals into both ethical and educational consideration, this study supplements current medical ethics, which is mainly concerned with medical professionals, and extends medical ethics education to include more common problems faced by patients. This study is a preliminary attempt to draw ethical implications from social studies of medicine. It demonstrates that medical ethics is a concern, not only for physicians, but for multiple agents including non-medical professionals. This kind of interdisciplinary approach can thus contribute to improving both the effectiveness of medical ethics and the social perception of doctors and medicine.
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New beauty ideals and particular types of plastic surgery beauty have emerged in South Korea from the early twenty-first century. By defining Gangnam-style plastic surgery as a hybrid of old Westernized beauty ideals and a new science of... more
New beauty ideals and particular types of plastic surgery beauty have emerged in South Korea from the early twenty-first century. By defining Gangnam-style plastic surgery as a hybrid of old Westernized beauty ideals and a new science of beauty with variations and contradictions, I intend to twist the simplistic understanding of non-Western plastic surgery as an effort to resemble the white westerner's body. I also draw political implications from a case of monstrous Gangnam-style beauty made by excessive plastic surgery.
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This study is based on ethnographic fieldwork at a plastic surgery clinic in Seoul, South Korea. Examining the three phases of plastic--consultation, operation and recovery--I show how surgeons work to shape not only patients' bodies... more
This study is based on ethnographic fieldwork at a plastic surgery clinic in Seoul, South Korea. Examining the three phases of plastic--consultation, operation and recovery--I show how surgeons work to shape not only patients' bodies but also expectations and satisfaction. Surgeons do so in part to assuage their own anxieties, which arise from the possibility of misaligned beauty standards and unforeseen anatomies, as well as the possible dissatisfaction of the patient. I offer the concept of 'surgical anxiety', which occurs in relation to inherently unruly patient bodies in which worries, fear, frustration, self-pity, cynicism, anger and even loneliness are symptomatic. The unpredictability and uncontrollability of patients' bodies, which generates anxiety for both patients and surgeons, work to constrain the power of plastic surgery and making it inherently vulnerable. This study also pays attention to the invisible work of taking care of surgical anxiety, as pract...
Research Interests: Sociology, Plastic Surgery, Aesthetics, Constructivism, Social Studies Of Science, and 14 moreMedicine, Affect (Cultural Theory), Feminist science and technology studies, Anxiety, Humans, Cosmetic surgery, Beauty, Female, Male, Republic of Korea, ANXIETY, Surgeons, The Politics of Care, and Allied Health Personnel
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This study shows how the obstacles to ‘studying up,’suggested by Nader(1972) have been exposed in concrete forms by the three authors’experiences of their own fieldwork. We aim to clarify which skills the authors have learned while... more
This study shows how the obstacles to ‘studying up,’suggested by Nader(1972) have been exposed in concrete forms by the three authors’experiences of their own fieldwork. We aim to clarify which skills the authors have learned while overcoming, detouring, and negotiating with those obstacles. We also propose the ways to address problems which are inherited from the shared assumptions of existing anthropological fieldwork. In addressing these problems of ‘studying up’and in accordance with three authors’fieldwork experiences, we divide the article into the issue-specific areas of (1) access, (2) attitude, (3) ethics, and (4) methodology. On the one hand, by addressing the obstacles of ‘studying up’the three authors have gained new opportunities to access field sites which were not planned and we have been given chances to make relationships with informants which may have not been possible otherwise. On the other hand, the problems that arose during the fieldworks were solved through t...
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Despite having been published back in 2008, Frankensteinian Everyday: Feminist Engagement with Health and Medicine in the Age of Biotechnology is absolutely worth discussing because of its relevance to the “Hwang affair,” bioethics, and... more
Despite having been published back in 2008, Frankensteinian Everyday: Feminist Engagement with Health and Medicine in the Age of Biotechnology is absolutely worth discussing because of its relevance to the “Hwang affair,” bioethics, and feminist STS in Korea. First of all, this book was published at a very germane time, when public awareness of the ethics of biomedical research and biotechnology was at its peak, after one of the most infamous of scientific scandals, both in Korea and worldwide. A couple of years earlier, Dr. Hwang Woo-Suk had fallen from grace as a national hero and scientist on account of his unethical acquisition of human eggs, fabrication of data, and embezzlement of public funds for his human embryonic stemcell research. In fact, four of the book’s chapters were originally presented at the International Forum for Securing Women’s Human Rights in the Age of Biotechnology, organized by Korean Womenlink in 2006. The so-called Hwang affair brought bioethical issues to the surface inKorean society: not only ethicists but also humanities and social science scholars came to realize that we needed to learn how to live with new biotechnologies, and social movement organizations and activists started to include science and technology in their agendas. Meanwhile, the Hwang affair became deeply associated with Korean women’s ambivalent relationship with biotechnology. The term Frankenstein, as used by the editors in the book title, refers to bodies enhanced with biotechnologies. There was a stark contrast between the invisibility of women in public discourse and the high visibility of women in everyday biotechnology practices. For instance, various contraception technologies were widely applied to Korean women’s bodies through government-led family-planning policy during the 1970s and 1980s, and plastic surgery continues to be a popular commodity among young Korean women to this day
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The majority of previous researchers on body management practices including plastic surgery has agreed that there is a strong connection between social demands of plastic surgery and public exposures of beautiful body-images, which this... more
The majority of previous researchers on body management practices including plastic surgery has agreed that there is a strong connection between social demands of plastic surgery and public exposures of beautiful body-images, which this research intends to analyze further. This study, on the one hand, discovers how body-images are produced and consumed through clinical practices of plastic surgery, particularly, surgeon-patient consultation processes based on the researcher’s participant observation on a plastic surgery clinic in Korea, and shows how visualization technologies are mobilized to reconstruct not only boundaries of patients’ bodies but also those of medical disciplines by viewing plastic surgery practices as knowledge production activities, on the other hand. While revealing that surgeon-patient consultation is the process to transform patient’s bodies to “scientific” objects and visualization technologies have been made to help plastic surgeons to make their discipline...
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ABSTRACT This paper, as an initiative to fertilize analyses on women’s technoscientific practices, reviews theoretical discussions and empirical studies in-between feminism and STS, mainly owing its thinking technologies to Karen Barad’s... more
ABSTRACT This paper, as an initiative to fertilize analyses on women’s technoscientific practices, reviews theoretical discussions and empirical studies in-between feminism and STS, mainly owing its thinking technologies to Karen Barad’s Agential Realism. The first part of this paper shows that women’s technoscientific practices as research sites are not only fertile grounds between STS and feminism but also conflict areas between constructivist theories and feminist politics. The second part proposes Agential Realism as an way of thinking to deal with ‘conflicts’ between STS and feminism in analytical levels. Agential Realism provides useful conceptual tools for ‘techno-scientific ways of thinking’ through the reconceptualization of agency, the displacement of agency by accountability, and the configuration of STS analysis as ‘apparatus.’ The third part finds three examples of ‘techno-scientific ways of thinking’ on women’s technscientific practices from previous feminist STS works, which suggests how to analyze not only women’s technoscientific practices but also diverse practices of science, technology, and medicine as follows: follow ‘the invisible’, account for ‘ontological choreography’, and ‘care’ for what is analyzed.
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While science museums, whose functions consist traditionally in collecting, preserving, researching, and displaying science-related objects, present scientific knowledge, figures, or tools in the historical context, science centers give... more
While science museums, whose functions consist traditionally in collecting, preserving, researching, and displaying science-related objects, present scientific knowledge, figures, or tools in the historical context, science centers give more emphases on science education by exposing interactive exhibits to their visitors. However, neither objects-oriented exhibits nor hands-on technologies can provide museum visitors with the full insight into modem science in terms of its complicated relationships to politics, economy, culture, art, risk, and environment. This paper argues that for the 21st century we need to establish a new kind of science museum through the critical examination of its previous kinds - science museums and science centers. In the first part of this paper, the history of the first and second generations of science museums, including their recent trends in science centers, in the West will be elaborated. Secondly, the development of national science museums in Korea ...
Thesis (M.A.)--Texas Tech University, 2004. Includes bibliographical references (104-111 leaves).
In recent years, the material has mattered to the humanities and social sciences in the West and feminism is no exception. It is a notable change that feminist analyses, which had previously shown critiques against science and technology,... more
In recent years, the material has mattered to the humanities and social sciences in the West and feminism is no exception. It is a notable change that feminist analyses, which had previously shown critiques against science and technology, attempted to build new engagements with matter. STS (science and technology studies) has also accumulated scholarships and developed conceptual tools on the thing or the existence itself through “the ontological turn.” The objective of this paper is not to introduce new materialism or new material feminism in full, but to reveal the possibility and potential of doing science, technology and women studies by selectively relying on the achievement of new materialism feminism. This article shows a way to study women's practice of science and technology by analyzing the case of plastic surgery practices through the ontological concepts of STS, particularly those of Annemarie Mol, Karen Barad, and Charis Thompson, and proposes a new engagement among new materialism, feminism, and STS.
This article is organized as follows. First of all, after briefly discussing main issues in new material feminism, I will show the limitations of previous feminist studies of plastic surgery under the light of new material feminism. The rest of the article introduces the conceptual tools of ontological STS, describes plastic surgery practices with those tools, and finally provides their feminist implications.
This article is organized as follows. First of all, after briefly discussing main issues in new material feminism, I will show the limitations of previous feminist studies of plastic surgery under the light of new material feminism. The rest of the article introduces the conceptual tools of ontological STS, describes plastic surgery practices with those tools, and finally provides their feminist implications.
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New beauty ideals and particular types of plastic surgery beauty have emerged in South Korea from the early twenty-first century. By defining Gangnam-style plastic surgery as a hybrid of old Westernized beauty ideals and a new science of... more
New beauty ideals and particular types of plastic surgery beauty have emerged in South Korea from the early twenty-first century. By defining Gangnam-style plastic surgery as a hybrid of old Westernized beauty ideals and a new science of beauty with variations and contradictions, I intend to twist the simplistic understanding of non-Western plastic surgery as an effort to resemble the white westerner’s body. I also draw political implications from a case of monstrous Gangnam-style beauty made by excessive plastic surgery.
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This study is based on ethnographic fieldwork at a plastic surgery clinic in Seoul, South Korea. Examining the three phases of plastic – consultation, operation and recovery – I show how surgeons work to shape not only patients’ bodies... more
This study is based on ethnographic fieldwork at a plastic surgery clinic in Seoul, South Korea. Examining the three phases of plastic – consultation, operation and recovery – I show how surgeons work to shape not only patients’ bodies but also expectations and satisfaction. Surgeons do so in part to assuage their own anxieties, which arise from the possibility of misaligned beauty standards and unforeseen anatomies, as well as the possible dissatisfaction of the patient. I offer the concept of ‘surgical anxiety’, which occurs in relation to inherently unruly patient bodies in which worries, fear, frustration, self-pity, cynicism, anger and even loneliness are symptomatic. The unpredictability and uncontrollability of patients’ bodies, which generates anxiety for both patients and surgeons, work to constrain the power of plastic surgery and making it inherently vulnerable. This study also pays attention to the invisible work of taking care of surgical anxiety, as practised by female staff members, and surgeons’ dependence on these workers. My focus on anxiety is a kind of remedy for the predominant concern with ‘ambivalence’ in constructivist science and technology studies; rather than continue to highlight the power differentials between experts/practitioners and lay people/patients, this study illuminates surgical anxiety as their shared vulnerability. Thus, this study proposes a new politics of care in technoscience and medicine, which begins with anxiety.
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This study investigates the widely recognizable discourse that characterizes South Korea as a plastic surgery nation by tracing media coverage of plastic surgery as published in two major Korean newspapers from 1960 to 2009.This study... more
This study investigates the widely recognizable discourse that characterizes South Korea as a plastic surgery nation by tracing media coverage of plastic surgery as published in two major Korean newspapers from 1960 to 2009.This study attempts to enrich our understanding of plastic surgery in modern times within the Korean context by delineating three distinctive periods of plastic surgery: legitimization (1960–79), popularization (1980–99), and industrialization (2000s). I show how the discourse of South Korea as a plastic surgery nation is both a local and a global construction. This paper further aims to deepen our understanding of enhancement technology by showing how the plastic surgery discourse in South Korea demonstrates the permeability of the boundaries between therapy and enhancement, bodily and social enhancement, and the individual and collective body. While the discourse has reinforced these complementary and intertwined relationships, what enhancement means for whom has not been questioned. I argue that statistics have variously been used to proclaim the ubiquity of plastic surgery, which works to “make up people” without attending to the actual experiences and effects of plastic surgery, either for individuals or the nation. In this way, the characterization of South Korea as a plastic surgery nation is a dubious construction.
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Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork at a plastic surgery clinic, this article shows that non-medical professionals called “patient managers” have played mediating roles between patients and doctors and possibly challenged medical... more
Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork at a plastic surgery clinic, this article shows that non-medical professionals called “patient managers” have played mediating roles between patients and doctors and possibly challenged medical ethics and authorities. Unlike previous social studies of plastic surgery, rather than simply criticizing the unethical aspects of the private medical market, this study starts from their realities and considers them as resources for medical ethics. By taking the roles of non-medical professionals into both ethical and educational consideration, this study supplements current medical ethics, which is mainly concerned with medical professionals, and extends medical ethics education to include more common problems faced by patients. This study is a preliminary attempt to draw ethical implications from social studies of medicine. It demonstrates that medical ethics is a concern, not only for physicians, but for multiple agents including non-medical professionals. This kind of interdisciplinary approach can thus contribute to improving both the effectiveness of medical ethics and the social perception of doctors and medicine.
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This study deals with natives' 'objections' which the three authors commonly encountered while they studied up' a plastic surgery clinic, the mad-cow diseases debates, and disaster prevention research centers, respectively. Our natives... more
This study deals with natives' 'objections' which the three authors commonly encountered while they studied up' a plastic surgery clinic, the mad-cow diseases debates, and disaster prevention research centers, respectively. Our natives - surgeons, university professors, and scientists-reviewed, questioned, criticized, and, sometimes, made suggestions on our own researches. On the one hand, our research affected the natives and exposed their new voices, which, on the other hand, also transformed researchers and their studies. Based on our own experiences of objections, this paper proposes that natives' objections are opportunities to reach for new kinds of anthropological knowledge and reflexivity, rather than something to be disregarded as native resistance and rejections of our ethnographic work. This paper is an attempt to appreciate and formalize objections as devices necessary to the conduct of ethnographic research in general. Objections as devices' incur two effects: one is to make 'differences' in anthropological representation and another is to share reflexive' abilities with natives. The main body of this paper shows how authors produced differences in and reflected with natives on their own research in terms of its contents, methods, and values through objections as devices.' As a conclusion, the last section presents components of 'objections as devices' -targets, triggers, junctures, sites, and forms-to those who are equipped with objections. This study suggests that objections are useful devices for ethnographers who aim to become reflexive research subjects with natives and create more differences in their fields and researches.
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This research was supported by Science and Technology Policy Institute, South Korea, in 2011.
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This paper highlights the ways in which natives employ the concept of ‘evidence’ in the field and attempts to explore new possibilities of its concept. Although evidences are consistently located in questions that anthropologists... more
This paper highlights the ways in which natives employ the concept of ‘evidence’ in the field and attempts to explore new possibilities of its concept. Although evidences are consistently located in questions that anthropologists encounter during their research, its concept itself has been rarely discussed in earnest. By focusing on three cases of fieldwork, which study debates and practices of scientists, medical doctors, and engineers, respectively, this paper looks at how those natives produce, use, and justify their evidences. As a result, the understanding of ‘their evidences’ has enabled anthropologists to reflect on how we imagine and make use of ‘our evidences.’ In this paper, while evidences that anthropologists have predominantly assumed are defined as ‘representational evidences,’ ‘ontological evidence (Holbraad 2008)’ is redefined and proposed as a new concept of evidence. Lastly, this paper shows that the concept of ‘ontological evidence’ not only negates hierarchies between natives’ and researchers’ evidences but also resolves confrontations between science and anthropology.
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Many Korean women felt strongly positive about donating their eggs for Hwang Woo Suk’s research, in spite of the fact that Hwang was accused of fraud. It is said that there is a kind of unique ‘egg donation culture’ among Korean women,... more
Many Korean women felt strongly positive about donating their eggs for Hwang Woo Suk’s research, in spite of the fact that Hwang was accused of fraud. It is said that there is a kind of unique ‘egg donation culture’ among Korean women, which urged them to donate their eggs for his research. However, positing such a Korean ‘egg donation culture’ does not seem to give a sufficient explanation of why so many Korean women were seemingly willing to provide their own eggs for Hwang’s research. Instead, we suggest that egg donation issues in the Hwang affair can be interpreted under the paradoxical context, in which Korean women are situated in the age of biotechnology. On the one hand, the invisibility of women as subjects in the public sphere led to their lack of social control over ova trafficking and made it possible for a huge number of eggs to be supplied secretly for Hwang’s team. The patriarchal structure of family, the myth of economic growth, and the restricted activities of feminist organizations are possible contributors to the invisibility of Korean women. On the other hand, in the practices of bodily technologies such as cosmetic surgery and reproductive technologies, Korean women have been highly visible. With the help of those technological instruments, women have been empowered to own their own bodies and to have them at their disposal. We argue that these dualistic realities of women as egg owners can explain the egg donation culture among Korean women in the Hwang affair. 황우석의 줄기 세포 연구 논문이 조작으로 드러났음에도 불구하고 많은 한국의 여성들은황우석 연구에 자신의 난자를 기증하는 것에 긍정적인 반응을 보였다. 이를 두고, 몇몇학자들은 한국 여성들 사이에 난자 기증을 강요하는 일종의 독특한 ‘난자 기증 문화’가 있는것이 아니냐는 주장을 제기하기도 했다. 그러나 한국의 ‘난자 기증 문화’라는 가설로는그렇게많은 한국 여성들이 황우석 팀의 연구에 겉으로 보기에는 자발적으로 자신의 난자를기증하려고 했던가에 대한 충분한 설명을 주고 있지는 못하다. 또한 ‘난자 기증 문화’라는것이 설명 개념으로서는 부수적으로 더 많은 설명을 요하고 있다고 보여진다. 이런 까닭에,이 논문에서는 기증 문화 대신에 난자 기증 현상을 생명공학 시대에 위치한 한국여성이라는 모순적인 맥락으로부터 설명하고자 한다. 한편으로, 공공 영역에서 한국 여성은 주체로서 ‘가시성’을 획득하지 못하고 있다. 이로 인해한국에서는 난자 매매에 대한 사회적 규제가 결여될 수 밖에 없었고, 이런 맥락에서 밝혀진것처럼 엄청난 수의 난자가 비밀리에 황우석 연구팀에 제공될 수 있었다. 가족 내에존재하는 가부장적 구조, 경제 성장에 대한 신화, 여성 운동 단체들의 제한된 활동들로부터한국 여성의 비가시성이 연유되었다고 보여진다. 다른 한편으로는 성형이나 재생산 기술과 같은 신체를 대상으로 하는 생명공학 기술들 적용 과정에서 한국의 여성들은 대단히 높은‘가시성’을 보이고 있다. 이들 기술 도구들의 도움으로 여성들은 자신의 신체에 대한소유권을 높일 수 있었고, 자신의 신체를 자신의 의지에 따라 처분할 수도 있게 되었다. 난자 기증 문화는 이런 가시성의 산물일 수 있다. 난자 소유자로서 여성의 이와 같은 이중적인 현실이 황우석 사태에 나타난 한국 여성들의난자 기증 문제를 설명해줄 수 있다고 본다.
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This study shows how the obstacles to ‘studying up,’suggested by Nader(1972) have been exposed in concrete forms by the three authors’experiences of their own fieldwork. We aim to clarify which skills the authors have learned while... more
This study shows how the obstacles to ‘studying up,’suggested by Nader(1972) have been exposed in concrete forms by the three authors’experiences of their own fieldwork. We aim to clarify which skills the authors have learned while overcoming, detouring, and negotiating with those obstacles. We also propose the ways to address problems which are inherited from the shared assumptions of existing anthropological fieldwork. In addressing these problems of ‘studying up’and in accordance with three authors’fieldwork experiences, we divide the article into the issue-specific areas of (1) access, (2) attitude, (3) ethics, and (4) methodology. On the one hand, by addressing the obstacles of ‘studying up’the three authors have gained new opportunities to access field sites which were not planned and we have been given chances to make relationships with informants which may have not been possible otherwise. On the other hand, the problems that arose during the fieldworks were solved through the researchers’ negotiations with informants and compromises between the researchers and the fields, in ways that were unexpected creative. This study further reveals four dualisms which are inherent in the premises which have permeated the existing ethnographic research: (1) closed off social fields and openness(access) (2) power and weakness(attitude), (3) advocacy and revelation (ethics), and (4) participant observation and literature analysis(methodology). We argue that what need to be overcome are these four dichotomized assumptions, rather than the previously suggested four obstacles. Three fieldwork projects of ‘studying up’are illustrated in this paper as experimentations with ethnographic research, which because of their experimental nature have raised unseen premises to the surface.
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This paper, as an initiative to fertilize analyses on women’s technoscientific practices, reviews theoretical discussions and empirical studies in-between feminism and STS, mainly owing its thinking technologies to Karen Barad’s Agential... more
This paper, as an initiative to fertilize analyses on women’s technoscientific practices, reviews theoretical discussions and empirical studies in-between feminism and STS, mainly owing its thinking technologies to Karen Barad’s Agential Realism. The first part of this paper shows that women’s technoscientific practices as research sites are not only fertile grounds between STS and feminism but also conflict areas between constructivist theories and feminist politics. The second part proposes Agential Realism as an way of thinking to deal with ‘conflicts’ between STS and feminism in analytical levels. Agential Realism provides useful conceptual tools for ‘techno-scientific ways of thinking’ through the reconceptualization of agency, the displacement of agency by accountability, and the configuration of STS analysis as ‘apparatus.’ The third part finds three examples of ‘techno-scientific ways of thinking’ on women’s technscientific practices from previous feminist STS works, which suggests how to analyze not only women’s technoscientific practices but also diverse practices of science, technology, and medicine as follows: follow ‘the invisible’, account for ‘ontological choreography’, and ‘care’ for what is analyzed.
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The majority of previous researchers on body management practices including plastic surgery has agreed that there is a strong connection between social demands of plastic surgery and public exposures of beautiful body-images, which this... more
The majority of previous researchers on body management practices including plastic surgery has agreed that there is a strong connection between social demands of plastic surgery and public exposures of beautiful body-images, which this research intends to analyze further. This study, on the one hand, discovers how body-images are produced and consumed through clinical practices of plastic surgery, particularly, surgeon-patient consultation processes based on the researcher’s participant observation on a plastic surgery clinic in Korea, and shows how visualization technologies are mobilized to reconstruct not only boundaries of patients’ bodies but also those of medical disciplines by viewing plastic surgery practices as knowledge production activities, on the other hand. While revealing that surgeon-patient consultation is the process to transform patient’s bodies to “scientific” objects and visualization technologies have been made to help plastic surgeons to make their disciplines “scientific” ones, this article also pays attention to complicated effects of new imaging technology beyond a mere means of "scientification" of plastic surgery.
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While science museums, whose functions consist traditionally in collecting, preserving, researching, and displaying science-related objects, present scientific knowledge, figures, or tools in the historical context, science centers give... more
While science museums, whose functions consist traditionally in collecting, preserving, researching, and displaying science-related objects, present scientific knowledge, figures, or tools in the historical context, science centers give more emphases on science education by exposing interactive exhibits to their visitors. However, neither objects-oriented exhibits nor hands-on technologies can provide museum visitors with the full insight into modem science in terms of its complicated relationships to politics, economy, culture, art, risk, and environment. This paper argues that for the 21st century we need to establish a new kind of science museum through the critical examination of its previous kinds - science museums and science centers.
In the first part of this paper, the history of the first and second generations of science museums, including their recent trends in science centers, in the West will be elaborated. Secondly, the development of national science museums in Korea will be discussed specifically for the understanding of Korean science museums. The next part of this paper will seek for the possibilities of the third generation of science museums through three examples, which show interdisciplinary, contextual, and institutional approaches to change science museums or science centers. Fourthly, the social function of science museums as "forum" will be discussed in relation to promoting public "participation" of science as well as public "understanding" of science. As a conclusion, some practical suggestions and conceptual guidelines will be proposed for the future Korean national science museum.
In the first part of this paper, the history of the first and second generations of science museums, including their recent trends in science centers, in the West will be elaborated. Secondly, the development of national science museums in Korea will be discussed specifically for the understanding of Korean science museums. The next part of this paper will seek for the possibilities of the third generation of science museums through three examples, which show interdisciplinary, contextual, and institutional approaches to change science museums or science centers. Fourthly, the social function of science museums as "forum" will be discussed in relation to promoting public "participation" of science as well as public "understanding" of science. As a conclusion, some practical suggestions and conceptual guidelines will be proposed for the future Korean national science museum.
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Here's another book Review that I wrote two years ago! Leem, S. Y. (30 November 2012) “The Future for ‘Hybrids’ is Already Here But…” Review of Petites leçons de sociologie des sciences by Latour, B. posted to Pressian.com available from... more
Here's another book Review that I wrote two years ago!
Leem, S. Y. (30 November 2012) “The Future for ‘Hybrids’ is Already Here But…” Review of Petites leçons de sociologie des sciences by Latour, B. posted to Pressian.com available from http://www.pressian.com/news/article.html?no=68342 [in Korean]
Leem, S. Y. (30 November 2012) “The Future for ‘Hybrids’ is Already Here But…” Review of Petites leçons de sociologie des sciences by Latour, B. posted to Pressian.com available from http://www.pressian.com/news/article.html?no=68342 [in Korean]
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Review of Pegasus 10000 Miles by Lee, Young-June, Korean Journal of Science and Technology Studies 11(2): 97-119. [in Korean]
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Science and technology studies (STS) is a relatively new field for studying science, technology, and medicine enacted and entangled in human life and society—that is, science, technology, and medicine as living practices rather than... more
Science and technology studies (STS) is a relatively new field for studying science, technology, and medicine enacted and entangled in human life and society—that is, science, technology, and medicine as living practices rather than universal theories or mere tools—and, more ambitiously, for attempting to compose the new common world beyond anthropocentric visions. STS is thus inherently interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, or transdisciplinary in its nature. So far, numerous STS works have shown that science and technology construct and are constructed by society such as politics, economy, and culture, just to name a few. In practice, many different human and nonhuman actors, not only scientists and engineers, engage with knowledge production and technological development and operation through consistent, contingent negotiations among them. My own work has moved this concept forward.
My research subject is plastic surgery, which is perhaps one of the most popularized medical technologies in Korean society, making it a good research site to observe the down-to-earth performance of technology. In this talk, I will present major findings from my own research on plastic surgery; propose my own version of STS as a study of cyborgs, things, and mediators; and discuss how it can contribute to improving the science-, technology-, and medicine-mediated world. My work is based on three years of “praxiographic” fieldwork at a plastic surgery clinic in Seoul, South Korea between 2008 and 2011. While revealing the beauty-making practices of surgeons and patients as cyborgs, the unruly power of mundane digital imaging technology, and the mediating roles of nonmedical staff members inside a plastic surgery clinic, I will suggest “beautiful” ways to see science, technology, and medicine in our living world and possibly improve them by empowering cyborgs, things, and mediators.
My research subject is plastic surgery, which is perhaps one of the most popularized medical technologies in Korean society, making it a good research site to observe the down-to-earth performance of technology. In this talk, I will present major findings from my own research on plastic surgery; propose my own version of STS as a study of cyborgs, things, and mediators; and discuss how it can contribute to improving the science-, technology-, and medicine-mediated world. My work is based on three years of “praxiographic” fieldwork at a plastic surgery clinic in Seoul, South Korea between 2008 and 2011. While revealing the beauty-making practices of surgeons and patients as cyborgs, the unruly power of mundane digital imaging technology, and the mediating roles of nonmedical staff members inside a plastic surgery clinic, I will suggest “beautiful” ways to see science, technology, and medicine in our living world and possibly improve them by empowering cyborgs, things, and mediators.
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South Korea is a plastic surgery nation, where the biopolitics of plastic surgery has been more powerful than any other parts of the world. The locus of plastic surgery in South Korea is the district called “Gangnam,” which is located in... more
South Korea is a plastic surgery nation, where the biopolitics of plastic surgery has been more powerful than any other parts of the world. The locus of plastic surgery in South Korea is the district called “Gangnam,” which is located in the southern area of South Korea’s capital, Seoul. Gangnam is where the magical aesthetic enhancement of Korean women as well as the miraculous economic development of modern South Korea have taken place since the late 20th century. Koreans’ love for plastic surgery attracted international attention long before Korean pop singer Psy’s song “Gangnam Style” was a huge hit around the world in 2012. This study thus focuses on how the biopolitics of plastic surgery works in South Korea but in different ways from what most of previous studies have done. Intensive and long-term participant observations at a plastic surgery clinic at Gangnam were carried out for this study from October 2008 to September 2011. Specifically, preoperative consultation processes between a plastic surgeon and lay patients, in which digital photographs are extensively mobilized, are drawn here to show what kind of ‘science’ works at the heart of a plastic surgery nation. By looking at what actually happens inside a plastic surgery clinic, this study attempts to materialize how plastic surgery has been proliferated in South Korea.
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Popular article published in Sisa Journal: Weekly New Magazine 1238: 46-47 [in Korean]
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The Women's News in South Korea
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The Hankyoreh in South Korea
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