Jaehwan Hyun
Pusan National University, Institute of Liberal Education, Faculty Member
- Pusan National University, Institute of General Education, Faculty Memberadd
- Jaehwan Hyun is an assistant professor of History of Science and Technology at Pusan National University. Currently, ... moreJaehwan Hyun is an assistant professor of History of Science and Technology at Pusan National University. Currently, Jaehwan is working on four projects. (1) The first one revolves around the histories of genetics and anthropology in South Korea and Japan, specifically within the framework of "racial science." (2) Secondly, he is investigating the history of conservationism and conservation science, as well as the history of Zainichi scientists (Korean scientists residing in Japan), from the perspective of "science diplomacy." (3) The third project focuses on the history of eugenics in South Korea, (4) while the fourth project delves into the East Asian history of face masks. Jaehwan’s approach to these projects involves challenging the standard periodization and geographical demarcation by taking a trans-war and trans-Asian focus.edit
기존 연구들은 1960~70년대 한국의 자연보호나 환경문제에 대한 인식적 전환의 배경을 미국 과학자들의 ‘지식 전파’에서 찾으며 한국자연보존협회 소속 생물학자들의 자연보존 운동을 미국 중심의 “자연보전”(nature conservation) 논의를 일방적으로 수용한 결과로 이해해 왔다. 이 글은 협회의 대중계몽지인 『자연보존』에 대한 분석을 통해 이와 같 은 전파론적 서사에 문제를 제기한다. 1960년대 중후반 협회의... more
기존 연구들은 1960~70년대 한국의 자연보호나 환경문제에 대한 인식적 전환의 배경을 미국 과학자들의 ‘지식 전파’에서 찾으며 한국자연보존협회 소속 생물학자들의 자연보존 운동을 미국 중심의 “자연보전”(nature conservation) 논의를 일방적으로 수용한 결과로 이해해 왔다. 이 글은 협회의 대중계몽지인 『자연보존』에 대한 분석을 통해 이와 같 은 전파론적 서사에 문제를 제기한다. 1960년대 중후반 협회의 생물학 자들은 국제자연보전연맹(IUCN) 인사들과 교류하면서 “conservation” 과 “preservation”의 차이에 대해 인식하게 되었지만, 이를 “자연보존”의 한 방법에 불과한 것으로 이해했다. 1970년대 초중반 국가권력과의 제휴 하에 대중 계몽 운동으로서 자연보존 운동을 추진하던 시기에 자연보존협회 인사들은 자연보존을 자연애호와 동일시하며 보존이라는 용어 에 다양한 의미를 부여했으나, 1970년대 후반 국가가 직접 관 주도의 자연보호 운동을 추진하면서 학술적 연구에 집중하는 단체가 된 자연보존 협회의 생물학자들은 정부의 자연보호와 자신들이 추구하는 자연보존을 구별하며 자연보존을 학술적, 개념으로 새롭게 정의하기 시작했다. 이들은 학술적 활동으로서의 자연보존과 정부 주도의 대중 동원 운동으로서의 자연보호를 개념적으로 구별하는 과정에서 국가권력에 친화적인 태도에서 벗어나 독재 정부의 자연보전 정책을 비판할 수 있는 공간을 작게나마 만들기 시작했다.
Through an in-depth examination of Chayŏnbojon Magazine, a popular environmental magazine published by the Korean Association for Conservation of Nature (KACN, Han'gukchayŏnbojonhyŏp'oe) from 1968 to the present, this paper explores the evolution of terminology related to nature conservation in South Korea during the 1970s. Initially, KACN biologists used the terms “preservation,” “conservation,” and “protection” interchangeably under the umbrella concept of “pojon” (보존). However, in the mid-1970s, while promoting the Chayŏnbojon movement (자연보존 운동)— an environmental campaign financially backed by Park Chung Hee’s authoritarian regime—they continued this ambiguous usage of “pojon.” The shift began in 1977 with the government’s launch of the nationwide Chayŏnboho movement (자연보호 운동) and the announcement of the Korean National Conservation Charter in 1978. During this period, the KACN started to delineate a clear conceptual distinction between “pojŏn” (보전) and “pojon,” a distinction that the government also adopted. The KACN biologists defined “pojon” as their specialized domain, separate from the government-led Chayŏnboho movement, and began to criticize the government’s pro-development policies. Despite this criticism, by the 1990s, the KACN had to conform to the new definitions, resulting in the current usage where “pojŏn” translates to “conservation” and “pojon” to “preservation” in Korean. This paper demonstrates that these terminological shifts were closely tied to changes in KACN’s organizational structure and goals, influenced by its political involvement and subsequent (relative) disengagement from the authoritarian regime in the 1970s.
Through an in-depth examination of Chayŏnbojon Magazine, a popular environmental magazine published by the Korean Association for Conservation of Nature (KACN, Han'gukchayŏnbojonhyŏp'oe) from 1968 to the present, this paper explores the evolution of terminology related to nature conservation in South Korea during the 1970s. Initially, KACN biologists used the terms “preservation,” “conservation,” and “protection” interchangeably under the umbrella concept of “pojon” (보존). However, in the mid-1970s, while promoting the Chayŏnbojon movement (자연보존 운동)— an environmental campaign financially backed by Park Chung Hee’s authoritarian regime—they continued this ambiguous usage of “pojon.” The shift began in 1977 with the government’s launch of the nationwide Chayŏnboho movement (자연보호 운동) and the announcement of the Korean National Conservation Charter in 1978. During this period, the KACN started to delineate a clear conceptual distinction between “pojŏn” (보전) and “pojon,” a distinction that the government also adopted. The KACN biologists defined “pojon” as their specialized domain, separate from the government-led Chayŏnboho movement, and began to criticize the government’s pro-development policies. Despite this criticism, by the 1990s, the KACN had to conform to the new definitions, resulting in the current usage where “pojŏn” translates to “conservation” and “pojon” to “preservation” in Korean. This paper demonstrates that these terminological shifts were closely tied to changes in KACN’s organizational structure and goals, influenced by its political involvement and subsequent (relative) disengagement from the authoritarian regime in the 1970s.
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In recent years, science diplomacy has swept both diplomatic and science policy circles around the world. Japan and South Korea are no exception and science and technology diplomacy (S&T diplomacy) is now the core agenda for their foreign... more
In recent years, science diplomacy has swept both diplomatic and science policy circles around the world. Japan and South Korea are no exception and science and technology diplomacy (S&T diplomacy) is now the core agenda for their foreign affairs and science policy branches. In both countries, despite the rising interest in S&T diplomacy, its long history is only vaguely recognized, as until now, those directly involved in current science diplomacy have largely failed to focus on it. To address this gap, this essay aims to provide a historical perspective on S&T diplomacy in Japan and South Korea. It reviews the global historiography and surveys relevant historical literature written in Japanese, Korean, and English. It also explores historical cases that are often overlooked but are essential for understanding the history of Japanese and South Korean S&T diplomacy. This work encourages Japanese and Korean historians of science to engage with S&T diplomacy as a legitimate research agenda, which would in turn contribute to a decentralization of science policy-dominated S&T diplomacy studies and promote a deeper understanding of the contemporary history of science, technology, and medicine in these two countries.
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This accepted manuscript is the seventh chapter of Ordering the Human: The Global Spread of Racial Science, which was edited by Eram Alam, Dorothy Roberts, and Natalie Shibley (Columbia University Press, 2024)
(ISBN: 9780231207331)
(ISBN: 9780231207331)
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Won Pyong-Oh (1929-2020) and his ornithological research played a significant role in the emergence of South Korean ornithology and nature conservation, which previous scholarship has attributed to US scientific aid and the resulting... more
Won Pyong-Oh (1929-2020) and his ornithological research played a significant role in the emergence of South Korean ornithology and nature conservation, which previous scholarship has attributed to US scientific aid and the resulting interactions that occurred in the 1960s. Focusing on his family’s scientific activities—including the work of his father Won Hong Gu (1888-1970) and his eldest brother Won Pyung Hooi’s (1911-1995)—from the colonial period to the 1960s, this paper argues the crucial role played by transwar interactions between the Won family and Japanese biologists in Won Pyong-Oh’s ornithological turn. In particular, it traces the Won family’s natural history collection activities as what I call “science as a family affair,” that is, a division of scientific labor between senior and younger family members as a principal investigator and an assistant/collector. By tracing these activities within the family as well as their continued engagements with Japanese biologists, this paper will reveal that Won Pyong-Oh’s ornithological research and conservationist work developed in the wider context of the reconstruction of Asian ornithological and conservationist networks in the 1960s.
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Focusing on South Korean biologists and their efforts to establish national parks in the 1960s and 1970s, I illuminate the ways in which they negotiated their relationship with the ecological diplomacy of the International Union for... more
Focusing on South Korean biologists and their efforts to establish national parks in the 1960s and 1970s, I illuminate the ways in which they negotiated their relationship with the ecological diplomacy of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the anti-communist and developmentalist diplomacy of the South Korean government. To justify their activities, these South Korean biologists emphasized the importance of nature conservation activities in the competition for international recognition and economic development with their northern counterparts. The national-park initiative was thus subsumed into the politics of this legitimacy competition between the two Koreas, or what I call 'victory-over-communism' diplomacy. The IUCN's influence over South Korea was limited to the extent that both the government and scientists recognized the diplomatic merit they could gain in the context of their Cold War competition and developmentalism. It is also shown how, during the short detente period of the two Koreas, South Korean biologists used victory-over-communism diplomacy to renew their government's attention to their activities. This Korean episode contributes to the wider perspective of decentralizing the Cold War history of environmental diplomacy in the free-world bloc by illustrating the importance of its entanglement with the Cold War politics surrounding Asian developmentalism.
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This paper examines how genetic profiling came to interact with mass disaster management and memory politics in South Korea from the late 1980s to the early 2000s. It pays particular attention to the parallel emergence of Disaster Victim... more
This paper examines how genetic profiling came to interact with mass disaster management and memory politics in South Korea from the late 1980s to the early 2000s. It pays particular attention to the parallel emergence of Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) governance and the politicization of modern and contemporary Korean history, including not only Japanese colonialism and Korean War crimes but also the South Korean state-led massacres, the Jeju Uprising of 1947–1954 and the Gwangju Uprising of 1980. I argue that genetic profiling, which had only recently been integrated into DVI governance, entered the human rights field when the concept of victim identification in South Korea was reconfigured to include victims of war crimes and state violence in the late 1990s. Beginning in the late 1990s, forensic scientists who had introduced and used genetic profiling for DVI activities became involved in identifying these newly integrated types of victims and became part of local reconciliation projects in the early 2000s. In this way, genetic profiling became intertwined with human rights activities, contributing to transitional justice and reconciliation. However, it also resulted in the geneticization of both disaster victims and state violence identification processes.
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This chapter looks at how the global circulation of knowledge and people reshaped ideas of race in one particular place: the Japanese empire and its colonies. While acknowledging the political and ideological backgrounds of the Japanese... more
This chapter looks at how the global circulation of knowledge and people reshaped ideas of race in one particular place: the Japanese empire and its colonies. While acknowledging the political and ideological backgrounds of the Japanese scientific enterprise, the chapter shows how anthropological and medical sciences reshaped the Japanese idea of race among Japanese settler scientists in colonial Korea. Attending to the global circulation of racial scientific knowledge, tools, and materials, this chapter elucidates the complicated relationship between science and race in the Japanese empire. It locates their anthropological expeditions in colonial Korea and Northeast China within the interwar context and argues that the empire’s interwar contexts, marked by the coexistence of military expansionism and international engagement, played a critical role in reshaping scientific concepts of race at the local level. From a global perspective, this scientific reconceptualization resonated with the rise of the “nation”-centered fascist policy in the 1930s.
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The early 1970s brought fundamental transitions in international scientific collaboration that significantly affected the international relations in global patterns that are still relevant today. This article uses a multi-perspective... more
The early 1970s brought fundamental transitions in international scientific collaboration that significantly affected the international relations in global patterns that are still relevant today. This article uses a multi-perspective approach to argue that the underlying condition for the globalization of science diplomacy was the increasing participation of recently independent countries in international technoscientific affairs, examining critical research areas, including space exploration, oceanography, nuclear technoscience, the environmental sciences, and health and population studies. Themes emerged at that time that continue to characterize what we term 'Global Science Diplomacy': multipolarity, resistance and agency, lack of global consensus, regional alliances and interests, and the centrality of the United Nations system to the conduct of transnational science. This survey is a first step in historical reflection on this phenomenon and shows that it was the emergence of the Global South in Science Diplomacy affairs that made Science Diplomacy global at the beginning of the 1970s.
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<사회와역사> 기획특집 "한국 우생학의 역사와 오늘" 서문
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In recent years, interest in South Korean eugenics has grown among social historians, particularly with regards to eugenic aspects of family planning in the 1970s and the Mother and Child Health Act of 1973. Examining the scientific... more
In recent years, interest in South Korean eugenics has grown
among social historians, particularly with regards to eugenic aspects
of family planning in the 1970s and the Mother and Child Health
Act of 1973. Examining the scientific discourse and social activities
of biologists and medical researchers from the post-liberation period
to the early 1960s, this paper argues that these medical scientists
played a crucial role in making “national eugenics” (minjok usaeng)
appear to be objective science and legitimate medical policy. Using
pre-WWII American eugenic theories and prewar and postwar
Japanese ideas about racial hygiene (minzoku eisei), they presented
eugenics as a “sound science” and intervened in legal debates
concerning human reproduction-related family laws. Furthermore,
they continuously pushed for legislation of a eugenics law modeled
on the Japanese Eugenic Protection Law (1948), and hoped to
legalize the sterilization of people with cognitive disabilities.
Through this case study, I demonstrate that History of Science can
contribute to the current interdisciplinary effort to revisit the family
planning-centered history of Korean eugenics legislation and help
uncover the origin of eugenic ideas in South Korean society today.
among social historians, particularly with regards to eugenic aspects
of family planning in the 1970s and the Mother and Child Health
Act of 1973. Examining the scientific discourse and social activities
of biologists and medical researchers from the post-liberation period
to the early 1960s, this paper argues that these medical scientists
played a crucial role in making “national eugenics” (minjok usaeng)
appear to be objective science and legitimate medical policy. Using
pre-WWII American eugenic theories and prewar and postwar
Japanese ideas about racial hygiene (minzoku eisei), they presented
eugenics as a “sound science” and intervened in legal debates
concerning human reproduction-related family laws. Furthermore,
they continuously pushed for legislation of a eugenics law modeled
on the Japanese Eugenic Protection Law (1948), and hoped to
legalize the sterilization of people with cognitive disabilities.
Through this case study, I demonstrate that History of Science can
contribute to the current interdisciplinary effort to revisit the family
planning-centered history of Korean eugenics legislation and help
uncover the origin of eugenic ideas in South Korean society today.
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This special issue, titled "Korean Science since the Colonial Period: Environment, Medicine, and Technology in Transwar Korea, " is intended to spark an academic conversation between Korean history of science and Korean studies. Despite... more
This special issue, titled "Korean Science since the Colonial Period: Environment, Medicine, and Technology in Transwar Korea, " is intended to spark an academic conversation between Korean history of science and Korean studies. Despite the recent surge of interest in the subjects of science, technology, and public health in the field of Korean studies, little interaction has been made between the two fields. Aiming to promote the history of science as a form of intervention, this introductory essay charts the institutional history of this field and the possible benefits that it can provide to Korean studies in terms of generating new insights.
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This paper examines the way in which South Korean biologists developed their conservationist minds and practices through a long tradition of academic expeditions to mountains that predate the 1960s cooperation with US conservationists. By... more
This paper examines the way in which South Korean biologists developed their conservationist minds and practices through a long tradition of academic expeditions to mountains that predate the 1960s cooperation with US conservationists. By focusing on mountain expeditions carried out by Korean alpinists and scientists from the late 1920s to early 1960s, this paper illuminates how Korean biologists developed forest and natural monument conservation practices they were able to incorporate into the governmental conservation activities while taking part in the Corean Alpine Club's postwar "academic alpinism" (akademik alpinijeum). I argue that their conservation activities, and specifically their military linkages, could be well understood as a transwar product rather than a Cold War outcome. Through this case study, I suggest that this transwar approach helps both historians of Korean science and Korean environmental historians study their research subject while avoiding the widespread analytical dichotomy of Japanese colonial legacies and Cold War ruptures.
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"일제강점기 위생 마스크의 등장과 정착", <의사학> 31 (2022), 181-220쪽. This paper examines the social life of masks in colonial Korea with a focus on their use in hygienic practices. It argues that masks first appeared in the disease control scene in late... more
"일제강점기 위생 마스크의 등장과 정착", <의사학> 31 (2022), 181-220쪽.
This paper examines the social life of masks in colonial Korea with
a focus on their use in hygienic practices. It argues that masks first
appeared in the disease control scene in late 1919 when the Governor-
General of Korea belatedly introduced preventative measures against the
Spanish Influenza pandemic. Since then, the central and regional hygiene
authorities had begun to encourage colonial Koreans to wear masks
whenever respiratory disease epidemics transpired. Simultaneously,
Korean doctors and news reporters framed mask-wearing as something
needed for family hygiene, particularly for trans-seasonal child health
care, and advised colonial Korean women to manage and wear masks.
This paper also reveals that the primary type of masks used in colonial
society was black-colored Japanese respirators. Its design was the main
point of contention in the debates on the effectiveness of masks against
disease infection. Finally, it also highlights that the wide support of using
masks by medical doctors and authorities was not based on scientific
evidence but on empirical rules they developed through the pandemic and epidemics. The mask-usage practice would be challenged only when South Korean doctors reframed it as a “Japanese custom not grounded on science” at the height of postcolonial nationalism and the raised concern about the artifact’s usefulness during the Hong Kong Influenza pandemic of 1968.
This paper examines the social life of masks in colonial Korea with
a focus on their use in hygienic practices. It argues that masks first
appeared in the disease control scene in late 1919 when the Governor-
General of Korea belatedly introduced preventative measures against the
Spanish Influenza pandemic. Since then, the central and regional hygiene
authorities had begun to encourage colonial Koreans to wear masks
whenever respiratory disease epidemics transpired. Simultaneously,
Korean doctors and news reporters framed mask-wearing as something
needed for family hygiene, particularly for trans-seasonal child health
care, and advised colonial Korean women to manage and wear masks.
This paper also reveals that the primary type of masks used in colonial
society was black-colored Japanese respirators. Its design was the main
point of contention in the debates on the effectiveness of masks against
disease infection. Finally, it also highlights that the wide support of using
masks by medical doctors and authorities was not based on scientific
evidence but on empirical rules they developed through the pandemic and epidemics. The mask-usage practice would be challenged only when South Korean doctors reframed it as a “Japanese custom not grounded on science” at the height of postcolonial nationalism and the raised concern about the artifact’s usefulness during the Hong Kong Influenza pandemic of 1968.
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In the latest issue’s “Editor’s Note” of EASTS, Wen-hua Kuo made a call to East Asian science studies scholars to commit to an archeology of the social and technical infrastructure of epidemics. Coincidently, ten historians and... more
In the latest issue’s “Editor’s Note” of EASTS, Wen-hua Kuo made a call to East Asian science studies scholars to commit to an archeology of the social and technical infrastructure of epidemics. Coincidently, ten historians and sociologists working on science, technology, medicine, and environment with a focus on China, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, and South Korea had just begun a collective effort to understand how face masks had become the most important part of the current pandemic governance in East Asia. As its first step, a virtual workshop, “The Socio-Material History of Masked Societies in East Asia,” was held at the Max-Planck Institute for the History of Science on 26 October 2020. This forum aims to introduce the virtual meeting’s outcome to the wider EASTS community and encourages them to engage with the collaborative enterprise to investigate the history of masks. All papers focus on the socio-material dimension of masks while problematizing current culturalist explanatory narratives about “masked societies” in East Asia. By doing so, the papers show how mask use is closely linked to heterogenous but interconnected entanglements of environmental governance, political movements, and risk cultures in East Asian polities. It interrogates these relationships in the context of scientific controversies and quarantine regimes.
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By focusing on the emergence and integration of “hybrid children” (konketsuji) anthropology into the Human Adaptability section of the International Biological Program (HA-IBP) in Japan during the 1950s and 1970s, this paper presents how... more
By focusing on the emergence and integration of “hybrid children” (konketsuji) anthropology into the Human Adaptability section of the International Biological Program (HA-IBP) in Japan during the 1950s and 1970s, this paper presents how transnational dynamics and mechanisms played out in shaping and maintaining the racist aspects while simultaneously allowed them to be included in the HA-IBP framework. It argues that they operated a double play between their national and transnational spaces—that is, they attenuated racist aspects of their research in their international activities while authenticating race in their national work. This paper will conclude with reflections on the transnational nationalism of konketsuji anthropology.
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The essays in this special issue shed new light on the transnational movement and exchange of researchers, data, theories, and scientific objects in the anthropological and genetic study of human populations in the twentieth century.... more
The essays in this special issue shed new light on the transnational movement and exchange of researchers, data, theories, and scientific objects in the anthropological and genetic study of human populations in the twentieth century. Historians have long stressed how the study of race and human populations in this period served to create a national identity for emerging nation states. More recently, historical narratives of anthropology and human genetics have emphasized the global scale of research networks in these sciences. This issue explores the specific routes, crossings, and interactions between national and international contexts prompted by the study of races and populations. The essays reveal not only how transnational scientific practices were strongly connected to national aspirations and projects, but also how unequal social and geopolitical power relations enabled and obstructed the transnational movement of both people and scientific knowledge.
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The Japanese and Korean sea women (Ama in Japanese and Haenyeo in Korean), female free-divers who make their living by harvesting shellfish and seaweed, have recently been spotlighted as examples of indigenous peoples that embody the... more
The Japanese and Korean sea women (Ama in Japanese and Haenyeo in Korean), female free-divers who make their living by harvesting shellfish and seaweed, have recently been spotlighted as examples of indigenous peoples that embody the intangible cultural heritage of humanity. Focusing on the role of science in this envisioning, this paper explores how Japanese imperial research on the physiology of the woman divers was revitalized in the form of a trans-pacific scientific collaboration after World War II. In the prewar period, Gitō Teruoka (1889-1966) studied the Japanese diving women as "primitive" industrial laborers from the perspective of German labor physiology (Arbeitsphysiologie). Hermann Rahn (1912-1990) at the University of Buffalo, New York, revamped Terouka's prewar research as part of his environmental physiology and created a research network, albeit a selective one, among US, Japanese, and South Korean physiologists in the postwar period. Examining the network-making process led by the founding scholar in environmental physiology through the 1965 symposium on the Ama of Japan, this paper will reveal that a shift in understanding of the "primitive" in the Cold War context renewed scientific interest in the diving women and played a central role in the formation of the trans-pacific network.
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This paper examines the planning, execution, and closure of the US-Korea Cooperative Ecological Survey project in the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in the 1960s. In this period, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) initiated... more
This paper examines the planning, execution, and closure of the US-Korea Cooperative Ecological Survey project in the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in the 1960s. In this period, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) initiated bilateral scientific cooperation between the NAS and similar organizations in developing countries along the line of the developmental turn of U.S. foreign assistance. Working closely with the NAS, U.S. conservationists used this scheme to introduce nature conservation practices and the discipline of ecosystem ecology to developing countries. In this context, by way of the NAS's Pacific Science Board, two countries' biologists initiated the preliminary cooperative project in the DMZ in 1966. Korean and U.S. scientists soon began to realize that their collaboration was marked by dissonance. The U.S. side attributed the cooperation failure to Korean culture while the Korean side criticized the unequal structure of their cooperation. Joining the global historiography of Cold War scientific collaboration, this paper pays particular attention to the intermediaries of the collaborative project and their rivalry. It argues that political struggles revolving around the position of go-betweens-as what I call knowledge brokers-on the recipient side provoked contestation between American and Korean scientists. The contention between the two sides played out in the collaboration coming to an end, albeit partially. Throughout this analysis, this study suggests paying more serious attention to the politics of scientific exchange among actors on the recipient side as an outset from which to analyze the heterogeneity of the Korean side without losing sight of their active role in the building process of American hegemony.
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This paper examines the rise and fall of genetic research on the Korean population from the 1960s to the 1980s. The research program, which was mainly undertaken by Korean geneticists who worked at or graduated from the Department of... more
This paper examines the rise and fall of genetic research on the Korean population from the 1960s to the 1980s. The research program, which was mainly undertaken by Korean geneticists who worked at or graduated from the Department of Zoology, Seoul National University, was inherently nationalist in sentiment. Engaging with the recent literature in Cold War scientific collaboration in population genetics, this paper focuses on the role of transnational exchange in the shaping of this nationalist science in South Korea. It argues that the dynamics of opportunistic collaboration of the Korean geneticists with foreign researchers over three decades was one of the crucial factors in the emergence and eclipse of the research program. This study will contribute to the previous literature by illuminating the marginal nature of Korean geneticists’ collaboration and their ambivalent attitudes towards collaboration, and suggesting the needs to pay more attention to the multidimensional aspects of trans-national exchange during that period.
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After World War II, blood groups became a symbol of anti-racial science. This paper aims to shed new light on the post-WWII history of blood groups and race, illuminating the postcolonial revitalization of racial serology in South Korea.... more
After World War II, blood groups became a symbol of anti-racial science. This paper aims to shed new light on the post-WWII history of blood groups and race, illuminating the postcolonial revitalization of racial serology in South Korea. In the prewar period, Japanese serologists developed a serological anthropology of Koreans in tandem with Japanese colonialism. The pioneering Korean hematologist Yi Samyŏl (1926-2015), inspired by decolonization movements during the 1960s, excavated and appropriated colonial serological anthropology to prove Koreans as biologically independent from the Japanese. However, his racial serology of Koreans shared colonial racism with Japanese anthropology, despite his anti-colonial nationalism.
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Recent literature on the history of medicine in colonial Korea has revealed that Japanese medical scientists studied Korean bodies to expose racial differences between the Japanese and Koreans and justify Japanese colonial rule. Previous... more
Recent literature on the history of medicine in colonial Korea has revealed that Japanese medical scientists studied Korean bodies to expose racial differences between the Japanese and Koreans and justify Japanese colonial rule. Previous scholars , however, have focused mainly on finding a connection between colonial medical research and eugenics. This article attempts to consider things as yet underinvestigated, in particular, the way in which medical research on Koreans emerged and was intertwined with Japanese colonialism in other ways, separate from contemporary eugenics projects. The article examines the emergence and development of what we now considered as "racial sciences"-physical anthropology, serological anthropology,
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Anthropological genetics emerged as a new discipline to investigate the origin of human species in the second half of the twentieth century. Using the genetic database of blood groups and other protein polymorphisms, anthropological... more
Anthropological genetics emerged as a new discipline to investigate the origin of human species in the second half of the twentieth century. Using the genetic database of blood groups and other protein polymorphisms, anthropological geneticists started redrawing the ancient migratory history of human populations. A peculiarity of the Korean experience is that clinical physicians were the first experts using genetic data to theorize the historical origin of the respective population. This paper examines how South Korean physicians produced the genetic knowledge and discourse of the Korean origin in the 1970s and 1980s. It argues that transnational scientific exchange led clinical researchers to engage in global anthropological studies. The paper focuses on two scientific cooperative cases in medical genetics at the time: the West German-South Korean pharmacogenetic research on the Korean population and the Asia-Oceania Histocompatibility Workshop. At the outset, physicians introduced medical genetics into their laboratory for clinical applications. Involved in cooperative projects on investigating anthropological implications of their clinical work, medical researchers came to use their genetic data for studying the Korean origin. In the process, physicians simply followed a nationalist narrative of the Korean origin rather than criticizing it. This was partially due to their lack of serious interest in anthropological work. Their explanations about the Korean origin would be considered “scientific” while hiding their embracing of the nationalist narrative.
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This article examines the interaction between human population genetics and the reconstruction of national identities and histories. Since the first use of mitochondrial DNA analysis of human origins in 1987, scientific research on... more
This article examines the interaction between human population genetics and the reconstruction of national identities and histories. Since the first use of mitochondrial DNA analysis of human origins in 1987, scientific research on population history using genetic technologies, or genetic history studies, has flourished, engaging with diverse politics of social identity and national belonging across the globe. Previous scholars have stated that a distinct feature of genetic history studies is the globalized research and commercial network enabled by technological innovations and social transformations during the 1990s. This paper contributes further to this literature by analyzing how local geneticists became part of the global research network and how globalization at large—e.g., economic liberalization and the rise of multiculturalism—functioned in the development of genetic history studies in South Korea. By focusing on a leading population geneticist, Kim Wook and his genetic origin research on Koreans, I will show the role that Korean geneticists had in reconfiguring Korean national identity—from an ethnically homogeneous group to an ethnically diverse one—while their research practices, questions, and methods were inspired and supported by domestic globalization policies and discourses and a transnational network of genetic history studies. I will also reveal the essential, albeit equivocal, part genetic knowledge played in the debate on national belonging in this county.
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Since a working draft sequence mapping of the human genome was published in 2001, the variety of the national genome projects has been initiated in South Korea. One of the rationales for such projects is that "the Korean genome database"... more
Since a working draft sequence mapping of the human genome was published in 2001, the variety of the national genome projects has been initiated in South Korea. One of the rationales for such projects is that "the Korean genome database" will be used for "the personalized medicine for Asians." By focusing on the development of human genomics in this country, this paper examines how the discourse has emerged as a strategy for commercializing the national genome. The paper argues that Korean genomicists developed this strategy under the influences of the global "genome sovereignty" policy and local "Asian regionalist" science policy. It will contribute to the literature of the "Asian" race and genomics by shedding new light on the historical formation of the Pan-Asian Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (PASNP) consortium beyond the Singaporean experience.
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South Korea in the 1960s is remembered as an era marked by the rapid development of science and technology, as well as the growth of the domestic economy. Historians of science have described the meaningful advancement of science during... more
South Korea in the 1960s is remembered as an era marked by the rapid development of science and technology, as well as the growth of the domestic economy. Historians of science have described the meaningful advancement of science during this period as a result of the establishment of a Korean science and technology system that overturned Japanese colonial precedents and sought support from U.S. science policy. In this study, however, I seek to understand the scientific achievement of South Korea in the 1960s by circumventing the binary scheme advocating either the continuity of, or departure from, colonial precedents. To that end, I shall explore Korean geneticist Kang Yung Sun’s academic career, and his ongoing connections with the Japanese scientific community, from 1941 to 1968. I argue that Kang’s scientific achievement in human genetics can be understood as an outcome of his efforts to develop new postcolonial relationships among U.S., Japanese, and Korean geneticists, by way of his colonial connections to a network of Japanese geneticists. Throughout the paper, I demonstrate that focusing on connections and exchanges among scientists beyond national borders can afford historians of science an opportunity to investigate scientific activities and trends in the 1960s, without sustaining the binary scheme of continuation or rupture.
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While gene doping and other technological means of sport enhancement have become a topic of ethical debate, a major outcome from genomic research in sports is often linked to the regulation of doping. In particular, researchers within the... more
While gene doping and other technological means of sport enhancement have become a topic of ethical debate, a major outcome from genomic research in sports is often linked to the regulation of doping. In particular, researchers within the field of anti-doping science, a regulatory science that aims to develop scientific solutions for regulating doped athletes, have conducted genomic research on anabolic-androgenic steroids. Genomic knowledge on anabolic-androgenic steroids, a knowledge base that has been produced to improve doping regulation, has caused the ‘geneticization’ of cultural objects such as ethnic identities and dietary habits. Through examining how anti-doping genomic knowledge and its media representation unnecessarily reify cultural objects in terms of genomics, I argue that Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications (ELSI) research programs in human enhancement should include the social impacts of anti-doping science in their discussions. Furthermore, this article will propose that ELSI scholars begin their academic analysis on anti-doping science by engaging with the recent ELSI scholarship on genomics and race and consider the regulatory and political natures of anti-doping research.
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There has been a growing concern about a new way of thinking about race in genomics. STS scholars have tried to make sense of the ways race came to be a part of the scientific, medical, and legal fields in the name of genomics. This... more
There has been a growing concern about a new way of thinking about race in genomics. STS scholars have tried to make sense of the ways race came to be a part of the scientific, medical, and legal fields in the name of genomics. This article adds to this STS literature on race and genomics with an analysis of antidoping science, a circuit of knowledge making that reifies race in terms of genomics but that thus far has been ignored by STS scholars. By engaging with the STS perspective on genomics and race, in this article I examine how antidoping regulatory knowledge on doping markers travels and how its operations are carried out both inside and outside this regulatory science. This study traces knowledge making about steroid doping regulations and its journey through the media and cyberspace, thus showing that regulatory efforts against doping were incidentally linked to the shaping of the idea of race in relation to genomics and personalized medicine, and especially that of Asian race. While the regulations, recommendations, and debates on the use of race in terms of genomics focused on biomedical research and practice, antidoping scientists are regulatory scientists on the periphery of biomedicine. Antidoping scientists did not, then, engage with debates on the use of racial categories when applying concepts of personalized medicine and pharmacogenomic studies in biomedicine. They used racial categories in their studies of the UGT2B17 gene without concern, and their research reinforced the shaping of racialist discourses on the idea of Asians as a doping-friendly race in the media and cyberspace. This case study suggests that, to improve academic and political intervention on race and genomics, STS scholars should expand their studies into peripheral disciplines of biomedicine such as antidoping science and other human regulatory sciences.
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In this paper, we continue our previous study on the differences, similarities and interfaces between the various models of scientific governance discussed in STS and those in risk governance developed by risk studies. In the previous... more
In this paper, we continue our previous study on the differences, similarities and interfaces between the various models of scientific governance discussed in STS and those in risk governance developed by risk studies. In the previous paper we illuminated that theoretical differences among STS scholars on scientific governance and public participation goes back to the 1970s and 1980s, during which they first laid down the conceptual basis of STS. In this paper we investigate how these divergent positions among STS scholars influenced their evaluations of precautionary principle and the framework of risk analysis (especially the separation between risk assessment and risk management), which are the two main paradigms in the area of risk regulation. By doing that, this paper will show divergent positions of STS scholars on risk analysis and precautionary principle. Further, we will suggest some theoretical and practical interfaces between STS and risk governance models.
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Recent critical studies of the history of physical anthropology view Sejin Rha’s (1908–1984) research on Korean populations (hanminjok) after World War II as a continuation of prewar Japanese colonial science. Taking into account the... more
Recent critical studies of the history of physical anthropology view Sejin Rha’s (1908–1984) research on Korean populations (hanminjok) after World War II as a continuation of prewar Japanese colonial science. Taking into account the so-called revolution of physical anthropology in the United States in the 1950s, these studies have maintained that Rha’s research program only re- peated traditional Japanese colonial anthropology without engaging the new revo- lutionary development in the field. This article challenges current understandings of Rha’s studies of Korean populations, chiefly his article in 1964, by consider- ing his peripheral position between two metropolitan sciences: prewar Japanese colonial science and postwar US international science. By tracing the changing scientific contexts during the 1930s–1960s to which Rha belonged, this article ar- gues that Rha produced a hybrid physical anthropology program. In particular, he sought to identify Korean populations as those of a biologically unitary nation (danil minjok). To do this, he selectively amalgamated theories, methodologies, and data from both the traditional Japanese colonial anthropology and the seem- ingly new US physical anthropology into his research program. This case study offers a critical examination of physical anthropology as a way to consider the so-called scientific dimensions of Korean scientists such as Rha who received Japanese colonial education. By situating a Korean scientist between two in- tellectual traditions, this article contributes to scholarship of the history of sci- ence in postcolonial Korea.
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In order to shed some light on the historical change of biodiversity concepts, this paper reviews the science and technology studies (STS) literature on the history of biological research on human genetic diversity. By doing that, I show... more
In order to shed some light on the historical change of biodiversity concepts, this paper reviews the science and technology studies (STS) literature on the history of biological research on human genetic diversity. By doing that, I show how the notion of genetic diversity in the human population - from “race” to “population” to “biogeographical ancestry” - has changed with methodologies and techniques over the last hundred years. In the meantime, I point out contexts and situations, despite conceptual and methodological developments, that show that current human genetic diversity research is slipping into the past mistakes of scientific racism. This article offers bio- diversity researchers an opportunity to consider their own scientific practices on classifying species more reflectively.
Following the completion of the Human Genome Project, the meaning and significance of racial categories has been reassessed by scientists, especially in the field of genomics. The number of scientific studies on genomics and on racial... more
Following the completion of the Human Genome Project, the meaning and significance of racial categories has been reassessed by scientists, especially in the field of genomics. The number of scientific studies on genomics and on racial differences has increased radically in recent years, although at one time scientists regarded the concept of race as a ‘social construct.’ This new racial science has become a kind of challenge to scholars of science studies, who attempt to focus on the historical, philosophical, and sociological aspects of science. This paper examines the responses of these scholars, specifically focusing on philosophers of science and STS scholars, to the new challenge of the science of race. Philosophers of science, on the one hand, are engaged in the work of saving the biological concept of race and the debate about the biological reality of race. On the other hand, STS scholars have favored a contextual approach to this subject by tracing the socio-historical backgrounds of the emerging new racial science and criticizing its contested effects in practice. This paper argues that these scholars would better comprehend the use of racial categories in genomics by taking into account both philosophical studies and historico-sociological studies of this phenomenon in view of a synthesis between them. This study will be a part of a larger effort to promote generative collaboration between the philosophy of science and STS
For the past 20 years, expert groups and citizens in Korea have debated on the usefulness of personalized medicine. These debates were mainly focussed on the possibility of the promise – people mainly discussed whether it was a probable... more
For the past 20 years, expert groups and citizens in Korea have debated on the usefulness of personalized medicine. These debates were mainly focussed on the possibility of the promise – people mainly discussed whether it was a probable future or if it was just a hype. Following Hedgecoe and Tutton(2002) who argue that it is only a ‘rhetorial device’, we will analyze about 9,000 news media coverages that deal with personalized medicine. With these data, we will show that the same terminology of personalized medicine have been used very differently according to the time and people who use it. Our research will show that this term has both diachronic heterogeneity and synchronic equivocality. This has happened because of the innate lack that exists in our symbolic system. Policy and governance regarding new technology is important because they provide quilting point to those slippery term/signifiant. Also we would like to carefully suggest that we might be able to call this phenomena as signifiant-politics.
The global diffusion of Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) is changing the landscape of medicine and the healthcare system. STS scholars have shown how EBM works when put into practice. In continuing to add to the literature of previous... more
The global diffusion of Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) is changing the landscape of medicine and the healthcare system. STS scholars have shown how EBM works when put into practice. In continuing to add to the literature of previous scholars, this paper traces the historical process and debate over Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) testing as an early screening test for prostate cancer in the U.S. This study will reveal that both pros and cons of the testing using EBM as a crucial resources of the debate, and in the process both ‘flexibly’ interpret and mobilize the hierarchy of scientific evidence for EBM despite the fact the hierarchy is imagined to being scientific criteria that is rigid. Furthermore, this paper will argue that this phenomenon, for which EBM currently seems to support the cons side of PSA screening, was constructed in the context of appraisal of the value 'quality of life' in the EBM system. This case study proposes that those who study the debate of medical technology in the EBM era should contextualize and analyze EBM as part of this debate rather than simply taking EBM for granted.
This paper first aims to reveal that, in the current trend of 'the participatory turn' in STS, there are divergent positions subtly different from each other, and that the understanding of these divergent positions can be significant to... more
This paper first aims to reveal that, in the current trend of 'the participatory turn' in STS, there are divergent positions subtly different from each other, and that the understanding of these divergent positions can be significant to study the differences, similarities and interfaces between the various models of scientific governance discussed in STS and those in risk governance developed by risk studies. Secondly, this paper shows that theoretical differences among STS scholars on scientific governance and public participation goes back to the 1970s and 1980s, during which they first laid down the conceptual basis of STS. All ideas and theories have their own historicity. This article is about the 'historical epistemology' of the participatory turn of STS, and is to seek 'political epistemology' that can become a shared vision of STS.
(현재환, 홍성욱 편/세라 베스 키오, 금현아, 섀로나 펄, 스콧 놀스, 트리디베시 데이, 미즈시마 노조미, 야마사키 아사코, 마리온 마리아 루이징어, 스미다 도모히사, 장멍, 브라이언 돌런, 김희원, 최형섭, 장하원 저자) 코로나19 이후 보건의료, 사회과학, 인문학, 문학 등 다양한 분야에서 팬데믹을 둘러싼 유의미한 논의가 홍수처럼 쏟아졌다. 그중에서도 이 책 『마스크 파노라마』는 과학기술학자인 현재환(부산대),... more
(현재환, 홍성욱 편/세라 베스 키오, 금현아, 섀로나 펄, 스콧 놀스, 트리디베시 데이, 미즈시마 노조미, 야마사키 아사코, 마리온 마리아 루이징어, 스미다 도모히사, 장멍, 브라이언 돌런, 김희원, 최형섭, 장하원 저자)
코로나19 이후 보건의료, 사회과학, 인문학, 문학 등 다양한 분야에서 팬데믹을 둘러싼 유의미한 논의가 홍수처럼 쏟아졌다. 그중에서도 이 책 『마스크 파노라마』는 과학기술학자인 현재환(부산대), 홍성욱(서울대) 교수가 뜻을 모아 엮어낸 책으로서, 마스크라는 인공물 자체를 과학기술학(STS)의 관점에서 연구한 11편의 국내외 연구 성과를 소개한다. 질병, 젠더, 인종, 환경정의 등 다양한 차원에서 성찰하며, 마스크를 둘러싼 의학적, 과학적 논쟁들과 정치적, 역사적 논의들을 파노라마처럼 넓게 펼쳐 보이는 흥미로운 연구 모음집이다.
이 책은 마스크가 친숙한 사물이 되기 이전의 낯선 측면들을 인류사 속에서 변화해온 다양한 사회적, 정치적, 문화적 문맥에 놓고 살핀다. 이를 위해 멀게는 18세기 유럽의 페스트 유행 당시 등장한 역병 의사 마스크부터 1911년 만주 페스트와 1918~19년의 스페인 인플루엔자 팬데믹을 거치며 다양한 종류의 방역용 마스크가 등장하는 양상, 코로나 사태 전후 한국을 비롯한 여러 국가에서 대규모로 마스크를 착용하게 되는 과정과 그 여파, 마스크 폐기물이 야기한 환경 문제 등을 추적한다. 전 세계인이 동시에 대규모로 마스크를 착용하게 된 것은 이번이 처음이겠지만, ‘마스크’라는 물건 자체는 매우 오래전부터 사용되며 자체의 역할을 수행해왔다.
코로나19 이후 보건의료, 사회과학, 인문학, 문학 등 다양한 분야에서 팬데믹을 둘러싼 유의미한 논의가 홍수처럼 쏟아졌다. 그중에서도 이 책 『마스크 파노라마』는 과학기술학자인 현재환(부산대), 홍성욱(서울대) 교수가 뜻을 모아 엮어낸 책으로서, 마스크라는 인공물 자체를 과학기술학(STS)의 관점에서 연구한 11편의 국내외 연구 성과를 소개한다. 질병, 젠더, 인종, 환경정의 등 다양한 차원에서 성찰하며, 마스크를 둘러싼 의학적, 과학적 논쟁들과 정치적, 역사적 논의들을 파노라마처럼 넓게 펼쳐 보이는 흥미로운 연구 모음집이다.
이 책은 마스크가 친숙한 사물이 되기 이전의 낯선 측면들을 인류사 속에서 변화해온 다양한 사회적, 정치적, 문화적 문맥에 놓고 살핀다. 이를 위해 멀게는 18세기 유럽의 페스트 유행 당시 등장한 역병 의사 마스크부터 1911년 만주 페스트와 1918~19년의 스페인 인플루엔자 팬데믹을 거치며 다양한 종류의 방역용 마스크가 등장하는 양상, 코로나 사태 전후 한국을 비롯한 여러 국가에서 대규모로 마스크를 착용하게 되는 과정과 그 여파, 마스크 폐기물이 야기한 환경 문제 등을 추적한다. 전 세계인이 동시에 대규모로 마스크를 착용하게 된 것은 이번이 처음이겠지만, ‘마스크’라는 물건 자체는 매우 오래전부터 사용되며 자체의 역할을 수행해왔다.
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A Korean Edition of A Cultural History of Heredity written by Staffan Müller-Wille and Hans-Jörg Rheinberger (The University of Chicago Press, 2012).
슈타판 뮐러빌레와 한스외르크 라인베르거의 저서 <A Cultural History of Heredity>(2012) 번역본.
슈타판 뮐러빌레와 한스외르크 라인베르거의 저서 <A Cultural History of Heredity>(2012) 번역본.
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권력, 자본, 좌파 등 특정 세력이 과학 논쟁 과정에서 의도적, 조직적으로 진실을 왜곡한다는 ‘청부과학론’은 나름의 사회적 역할에도 불구하고 근원적 한계를 지니고 있다. 모든 논쟁들을 단순한 진실게임으로 환원시킴으로써 논쟁에 깃든 사회정치적, 역사적, 문화적 요소들을 지워 버리기 때문이다. 이를 극복하기 위해 글쓴이가 꺼내 든 개념은 ‘언던 사이언스(Undone Science)’다. ‘언던 사이언스’는 미국의... more
권력, 자본, 좌파 등 특정 세력이 과학 논쟁 과정에서 의도적, 조직적으로 진실을 왜곡한다는 ‘청부과학론’은 나름의 사회적 역할에도 불구하고 근원적 한계를 지니고 있다. 모든 논쟁들을 단순한 진실게임으로 환원시킴으로써 논쟁에 깃든 사회정치적, 역사적, 문화적 요소들을 지워 버리기 때문이다. 이를 극복하기 위해 글쓴이가 꺼내 든 개념은 ‘언던 사이언스(Undone Science)’다.
‘언던 사이언스’는 미국의 과학운동가 데이비드 헤스가 ‘정부, 산업, 사회운동의 제도적 매트릭스 속에서 체계적으로 배제된 채 생산되지 않은 지식들’을 가리키기 위해 만든 개념이다. 글쓴이는 이를 더욱 확장하여 ‘특정한 사회적, 정치적, 문화적 맥락 속에서 무시되고 배제된 과학 연구 영역들’이라는 의미로 사용하고 있다. 과학사, 과학철학, 과학기술학(STS) 같은 통섭적 분야의 연구 성과들이 두루 반영된 이 관점은 ‘진실 vs 거짓’ 혹은 ‘과학 vs 비과학’이라는 이분법을 뛰어넘어 현대과학의 논쟁들을 새로운 시선으로 바라볼 수 있게 해 준다.
글쓴이는 19세기 이후 지금까지의 다양한 과학 논쟁들을 언던 사이언스의 관점에서 새롭게 분석한다. 1부에서는 나치의 인종위생학을 비롯한 과거 사례들을 역사적 맥락 속에서 재해석하고, 2부에선 구제역 살처분을 비롯한 현대의 쟁점들을 관찰함으로써 ‘언던 사이언스’라는 개념의 유용성을 입증한다. 그리고 3부에서는 광우병, 삼성백혈병, 저선량 방사선 같은 첨예한 과학 논쟁들을 언던 사이언스의 세밀한 렌즈를 통해 본격적으로 탐구한다.
‘언던 사이언스’는 미국의 과학운동가 데이비드 헤스가 ‘정부, 산업, 사회운동의 제도적 매트릭스 속에서 체계적으로 배제된 채 생산되지 않은 지식들’을 가리키기 위해 만든 개념이다. 글쓴이는 이를 더욱 확장하여 ‘특정한 사회적, 정치적, 문화적 맥락 속에서 무시되고 배제된 과학 연구 영역들’이라는 의미로 사용하고 있다. 과학사, 과학철학, 과학기술학(STS) 같은 통섭적 분야의 연구 성과들이 두루 반영된 이 관점은 ‘진실 vs 거짓’ 혹은 ‘과학 vs 비과학’이라는 이분법을 뛰어넘어 현대과학의 논쟁들을 새로운 시선으로 바라볼 수 있게 해 준다.
글쓴이는 19세기 이후 지금까지의 다양한 과학 논쟁들을 언던 사이언스의 관점에서 새롭게 분석한다. 1부에서는 나치의 인종위생학을 비롯한 과거 사례들을 역사적 맥락 속에서 재해석하고, 2부에선 구제역 살처분을 비롯한 현대의 쟁점들을 관찰함으로써 ‘언던 사이언스’라는 개념의 유용성을 입증한다. 그리고 3부에서는 광우병, 삼성백혈병, 저선량 방사선 같은 첨예한 과학 논쟁들을 언던 사이언스의 세밀한 렌즈를 통해 본격적으로 탐구한다.
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This edited volume aims to bring the forces of nature in Korea to the forefront of writing the history of Korea. Chapters in the volume cross the chronological, political, and geographical boundaries of Korea—between the premodern and... more
This edited volume aims to bring the forces of nature in Korea to the forefront of writing the history of Korea. Chapters in the volume cross the chronological, political, and geographical boundaries of Korea—between the premodern and modern periods, colonial and post-colonial periods, North Korea and South Korea, and Korea and the globe. The volume collectively sheds light on how ecology, energy systems, and climate events played a role in the co-production of nature and people in Korean history.1 Perhaps misled by the title, Forces of Nature, some readers may expect an addition to the recent new materialist literature aiming to decentralize human actors in favor of non-human actors. However, as editor David Fedman notes, rather than simply questioning the anthropocentrism in Korean history, this collection aims to put human actors in their physical and material surroundings and reveal the relationship between them. For this reason, the term “forces of nature” is used in two senses: It refers to external events that humans cannot control—e.g., climate disasters—and to the powers humans use to control and manage their environment—e.g., hydropower and nuclear power (4). This clever definition allowed the editors to include perspectives from a range of fields. Despite the inclusive gesture toward Science and Technology Studies (STS), however, some contributors espouse a climate determinist perspective and evince the binary of natural versus social.
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In recent years, scholars of the East Asian history of science, technology, and medicine (EASTM) have embraced two shifts in historical approach: a transnational shift attending to the circulations of humans, things, and knowledge across... more
In recent years, scholars of the East Asian history of science, technology, and medicine (EASTM) have embraced two shifts in historical approach: a transnational shift attending to the circulations of humans, things, and knowledge across national borders; and a transwar shift challenging the standard periodization into pre- and post-WWII by highlighting the development of science, technology, and medicine in a historical continuum starting from the 1920s. In this context, historian of Japan and northeast Asia Annika A. Culver has written a timely book titled Japan’s Empire of Birds: Aristocrats, Anglo-Americans, and Transwar Ornithology. Japanese ornithologists from aristocratic backgrounds continuously pursued scientific
collaborations with diverse communities and individuals, including Anglo-American ornithologists and local colonial collectors both within and outside of the territories of the Japanese Empire, to achieve what Culver calls “avian imperialism.” Using her expertise in cultural history and extensive archival materials collected from Japan, the UK, and the US, Culver skillfully narrates a variety of transwar collaborations from the early 1910s to the 1970s (or to the present, if one includes her Conclusion). Chronologically, the first six chapters of Empire of Birds cover the “prewar” period, and the final two chapters deal with the “postwar” period up to the 1970s. Her analysis, showing the importance of the intellectual and social connections
between Japanese elite ornithologists and Anglo-American scientists in
the postwar revitalization of Japanese ornithology, effectively persuades readers to understand the whole history from a transwar perspective.
collaborations with diverse communities and individuals, including Anglo-American ornithologists and local colonial collectors both within and outside of the territories of the Japanese Empire, to achieve what Culver calls “avian imperialism.” Using her expertise in cultural history and extensive archival materials collected from Japan, the UK, and the US, Culver skillfully narrates a variety of transwar collaborations from the early 1910s to the 1970s (or to the present, if one includes her Conclusion). Chronologically, the first six chapters of Empire of Birds cover the “prewar” period, and the final two chapters deal with the “postwar” period up to the 1970s. Her analysis, showing the importance of the intellectual and social connections
between Japanese elite ornithologists and Anglo-American scientists in
the postwar revitalization of Japanese ornithology, effectively persuades readers to understand the whole history from a transwar perspective.
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『서울리뷰오브북스』 10호에 실린 이선옥, 『태권V와 명랑소녀 국민만들기』 (책과함께, 2022)의 서평.
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[HORIZON] 기고문: https://horizon.kias.re.kr/23468/
Research Interests:
"...이 글에서 나는 뼈의 과학에 새겨진 어두운 역사에 더해, 서구 바깥의, 우리에게 좀 더 가까운 이야기를 해보려고 한다. 20세기 초반 식민지 조선에서 일본인 인류학자들과 의사들이 조선인 여성들의 골반 뼈에 대해 수행한 과학적 연구들 말이다. 이 글은 조선인 여성들의 뼈에 관한 이들의 연구가 남성과 여성을 본질적으로 다른, 나아가 후자를 과학적 관점에서 생물학적으로 더 취약한 존재로 만드는 동시에 조선인을 일본인보다... more
"...이 글에서 나는 뼈의 과학에 새겨진 어두운 역사에 더해, 서구 바깥의, 우리에게 좀 더 가까운 이야기를 해보려고 한다. 20세기 초반 식민지 조선에서 일본인 인류학자들과 의사들이 조선인 여성들의 골반 뼈에 대해 수행한 과학적 연구들 말이다. 이 글은 조선인 여성들의 뼈에 관한 이들의 연구가 남성과 여성을 본질적으로 다른, 나아가 후자를 과학적 관점에서 생물학적으로 더 취약한 존재로 만드는 동시에 조선인을 일본인보다 “민도(民度)”가 낮은, 열등한 민족성을 가진 집단으로 만들려는 의도와도 긴밀하게 연결되어 있음을 보이려고 한다. 이를 통해 우리는 한때 한반도에서 여성 골반 뼈의 과학이 식민주의적 인종주의와 성차별주의가 교차하는 지점에 놓인 채 이루어지고 있었음을 확인하게 될 것이다..."
<과학잡지 에피(Epi)> 20호, "키워드-숨(Exhalation)" 섹션 게재.
<과학잡지 에피(Epi)> 20호, "키워드-숨(Exhalation)" 섹션 게재.
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웹진 [HORIZON] 기고: https://horizon.kias.re.kr/23100/
Research Interests:
Gerald L. Geison, The Private Science of Louis Pasteur (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995)의 서평. <교차 3호: 전기, 삶에서 글로>에 게재.
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"포스트게놈 시대에 부활하는 망령들로부터 벗어나기: 『리센코의 망령: 소비에트 유전학의 굴곡진 역사』 로렌 그레이엄(2021), 동아시아", 『과학기술과 사회』, 2호 (2022), 249-259쪽
https://www.aladin.co.kr/shop/wproduct.aspx?ItemId=297927368
https://www.aladin.co.kr/shop/wproduct.aspx?ItemId=297927368
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재난을 순전히 자연적인 것이 아니라 인간이 만들어낸 산물이라고 생각하면 자연재해(혹은 환경재난)와 기술재해(혹은 기술재난)라는 이분법적 정의 하에서는 그다지 드러나지 않았던 “재난들”이 눈에 들어오기 시작한다. 그 중에 하나가 지난 세기 말 국가폭력이 야기한 재난으로 최근 재조명되고 있는 최루탄 피해이다. 이 짧은 글에서 나는 최루탄 피해를 주제로 삼아 재난에 대한 국가의 돌봄과 과학의 관계를 고찰해 보려고 한다.... more
재난을 순전히 자연적인 것이 아니라 인간이 만들어낸 산물이라고 생각하면 자연재해(혹은 환경재난)와 기술재해(혹은 기술재난)라는 이분법적 정의 하에서는 그다지 드러나지 않았던 “재난들”이 눈에 들어오기 시작한다. 그 중에 하나가 지난 세기 말 국가폭력이 야기한 재난으로 최근 재조명되고 있는 최루탄 피해이다. 이 짧은 글에서 나는 최루탄 피해를 주제로 삼아 재난에 대한 국가의 돌봄과 과학의 관계를 고찰해 보려고 한다.
http://www.kyobobook.co.kr/product/detailViewKor.laf?mallGb=KOR&ejkGb=KOR&barcode=3904000331195
http://www.kyobobook.co.kr/product/detailViewKor.laf?mallGb=KOR&ejkGb=KOR&barcode=3904000331195
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"반도핑 과학은 언제나 공정한가", <호라이즌> 2022.5.29.
https://horizon.kias.re.kr/21133/
https://horizon.kias.re.kr/21133/
Research Interests:
현재환, "위험한 공기를 상상하다: 20세기 초 의과학의 지구적 순환과 방역용 마스크의 탄생", 부산대학교 인문대학, 『동아시아지식학 총서 4: 동양과 서양의 문화교류』, (부산대학교출판부, 2022), 49-79쪽. Jaehwan Hyun, "The Global Circulation of Medical Knowledge and the Birth of Epidemic Masks in the Early Twentieth... more
현재환, "위험한 공기를 상상하다: 20세기 초 의과학의 지구적 순환과 방역용 마스크의 탄생", 부산대학교 인문대학, 『동아시아지식학 총서 4: 동양과 서양의 문화교류』, (부산대학교출판부, 2022), 49-79쪽.
Jaehwan Hyun, "The Global Circulation of Medical Knowledge and the Birth of Epidemic Masks in the Early Twentieth Century", in Pusan National University College of Humanities ed., The Cross-Cultural Exchange between East and West, Pusan National University Press, 2022, pp.49-79.
Jaehwan Hyun, "The Global Circulation of Medical Knowledge and the Birth of Epidemic Masks in the Early Twentieth Century", in Pusan National University College of Humanities ed., The Cross-Cultural Exchange between East and West, Pusan National University Press, 2022, pp.49-79.
Research Interests:
1950-1951년 유네스코는 세계 각국의 전문가들의 의견을 종합한 인종에 관한 공동 성명을 제시했다. 제2차 세계 대전의 배경을 “인종의 불평등이라는 교의”가 확산된 데서 찾고, 오늘날의 “평화를 잃지 않기 위해서는 인류의 지적, 도덕적 연대”가 필요하다고 명시한 유네스코 헌장(1945)을 고려하면, 유네스코 인종 선언문은 인종 간 생물학적 우열이 존재한다는 과학적 인종주의가 과학적으로 틀렸음을 인류 전체에게 널리... more
1950-1951년 유네스코는 세계 각국의 전문가들의 의견을 종합한 인종에 관한 공동 성명을 제시했다. 제2차 세계 대전의 배경을 “인종의 불평등이라는 교의”가 확산된 데서 찾고, 오늘날의 “평화를 잃지 않기 위해서는 인류의 지적, 도덕적 연대”가 필요하다고 명시한 유네스코 헌장(1945)을 고려하면, 유네스코 인종 선언문은 인종 간 생물학적 우열이 존재한다는 과학적 인종주의가 과학적으로 틀렸음을 인류 전체에게 널리 알리려는 시도였다고 말할 수 있겠다. 다만 실제로 당시 성명 작성에 관여한 과학자들이나 국제 과학자 공동체가 이런 유네스코의 도덕적 이상이 담긴 인종 선언문을 “과학적”으로 생각했는지에 대해서는 생각해볼 여지가 있다. 당시 선언문 초안을 작성, 배포, 수정, 확정하는 과정에서 과학자들은 인종주의를 퇴치하는 것처럼 사회적으로 좋은 과학이 과연 과학적인 관점에서 옳은 과학일 수 있는지를 두고 치열하게 논쟁을 벌였다. 그리고 이런 논쟁 가운데 등장한 과학의 본성에 관한 여러 질문들은 오늘날에도 인간 과학 연구자들 사이에서 논쟁거리로 남아 있다. 이 글은 이런 유네스코 인종 선언문 논쟁을 소개하고 그 현재적 함의를 간단히 고찰해보려고 한다.
https://horizon.kias.re.kr/19420/
https://horizon.kias.re.kr/19420/
Research Interests:
계간 <<스켑틱(SKEPTIC): 과학, 인종의 경계를 묻다>> 24호 (2020년 12월호)의 커버 스토리: 과학사학자 현재환은 ‘인종 분류의 과학사와 그 흔적들’에서 역사를 통해 과학이 어떻게 인종을 분류하려고 시도했고, 또 그것이 어떻게 인종주의와 연결되었는지 추적한다. 뷔퐁에서 시작해 가속화된 인종주의적 인종 분류의 과학적 열망은 진화론과 유전학이 결합된 신다윈주의 시대에 들어와 어느 정도 약화되기는 했지만... more
계간 <<스켑틱(SKEPTIC): 과학, 인종의 경계를 묻다>> 24호 (2020년 12월호)의 커버 스토리: 과학사학자 현재환은 ‘인종 분류의 과학사와 그 흔적들’에서 역사를 통해 과학이 어떻게 인종을 분류하려고 시도했고, 또 그것이 어떻게 인종주의와 연결되었는지 추적한다. 뷔퐁에서 시작해 가속화된 인종주의적 인종 분류의 과학적 열망은 진화론과 유전학이 결합된 신다윈주의 시대에 들어와 어느 정도 약화되기는 했지만 계속적으로 이어지고 있다.
Research Interests:
Book Reviews—Southeast Asia
The Journal of Asian Studies, Volume 79, Issue 4, November 2020, pp. 1052-1054.
The Journal of Asian Studies, Volume 79, Issue 4, November 2020, pp. 1052-1054.
Research Interests:
The Mask—Arrayed explores the material, technological, and cultural aspects of the most iconic artifact of the COVID-19 crisis—the face mask. Historians of science, technology, medicine, and the environment unmask in short essays the... more
The Mask—Arrayed explores the material, technological, and cultural aspects of the most iconic artifact of the COVID-19 crisis—the face mask. Historians of science, technology, medicine, and the environment unmask in short essays the complexity of a seemingly simple object and unveil its many layers and different usages in both material and non-material terms.
We observe new knowledge, technologies, and materials in the making, follow processes of adaption and invention, and ask how claims of knowledge and technological functionalities are constructed and defended. Striving for geographical breadth though not for universal claims, the project features essays about masks around the globe.
As the crisis requires us to adapt to a new world with the skills and knowledge we already possess, each author brings their specific research expertise and interests to meet the challenge. Our research is enriched by artist’s interventions and interviews with people who have interacted with the object of desire in very special ways.
The project is hosted by Department III (Artefacts, Action, Knowledge) of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG) and is inspired by the department’s unique perspective on studying the history of science that considers the changing role of artifacts: texts, objects, and spaces. The idea emerged during the Department’s first virtual meeting necessitated by social distancing.
https://themaskarrayed.net/
We observe new knowledge, technologies, and materials in the making, follow processes of adaption and invention, and ask how claims of knowledge and technological functionalities are constructed and defended. Striving for geographical breadth though not for universal claims, the project features essays about masks around the globe.
As the crisis requires us to adapt to a new world with the skills and knowledge we already possess, each author brings their specific research expertise and interests to meet the challenge. Our research is enriched by artist’s interventions and interviews with people who have interacted with the object of desire in very special ways.
The project is hosted by Department III (Artefacts, Action, Knowledge) of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG) and is inspired by the department’s unique perspective on studying the history of science that considers the changing role of artifacts: texts, objects, and spaces. The idea emerged during the Department’s first virtual meeting necessitated by social distancing.
https://themaskarrayed.net/
Research Interests:
The Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), a 250-kilometer long and four-kilometer wide buffer zone, was created after the armistice of the Korean War in 1953. One of the most globally recognized militarized landscapes, it is also a site where... more
The Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), a 250-kilometer long and four-kilometer wide buffer zone, was created after the armistice of the Korean War in 1953. One of the most globally recognized militarized landscapes, it is also a site where the incidental convergence of defense activity and environmental protection has taken place. Since its establishment the DMZ has remained terra nullius, only open to non-humans, apart from occasional local military crashes. As the recent designation of the DMZ as a UNESCO biosphere reserve illustrates, this product of Cold War conflict is now widely recognized as a haven for endangered animals and plants. In his research, Postdoctoral Fellow Jaehwan Hyun examines how environmentalism, science, and geopolitics became intertwined by the military-supported fieldworks during the Cold War, enabling a new ecological vision for the DMZ. tivity with natural history surveying to identify national fauna and flora that represented the unique nature of the nation. Under a materialistic and symbolic regime competition with North Korea, local scientists continued the mountaineering-tradition practices through collaborative US-South Korea fieldwork at the DMZ, despite the definition of the project as an "ecological survey." They searched for national animals and plants, such as tigers and pine trees that were supposed to have been threatened by Japanese colonialism, in the bushes of the DMZ. Neither the financial supporter-the US military-nor the US scientific collaborators were interested in such work, and they sometimes quarreled with the local scientists, blaming the Korean side for being ignorant of ecology and "primitive" naturalists. However, they soon conceded that the South Korean fieldworkers should be allowed to pursue their work: only Koreans could work in the long-term base, and only they possessed local knowledge about the field. Finally, the Korean scientists incorporated the results of field surveys into a government propagandist book, which described the DMZ as a showcase of "the restoration of the Korean nature (Kŭmsugangsan)." This therefore turned environmental cooperation into a means of nation-building. The Ambivalent Legacy of Military Ecology The DMZ has recently been under the spotlight for the "greening" of security diplomacy by local government and outside observers. The South Korean President Moon Jae-In pledged to transform the DMZ into a "peace(ful) and cooperating district" at the United Nations General Assembly in Sep-tember 2019. His proposal is another articulation of the DMZ diplomacy that his predecessors have promoted since the early 1990s: environmental cooperation and research and ecotourism within the zone are its main tactics for bringing North Korea to the table. Current environmental diplomacy counts on a particular version of the environmental conception of the DMZ that was created by military ecologists. Yet the other side of their scientific activities during the Cold War remains under-recognized. Jaehwan Hyun' s project tells us the ambivalent legacy of military ecology: while claiming natural protection of and research on the borderland, for instance, US ecologists advised its military to use Agent Orange to clear plants and trees. This project seeks to further illuminate this ambivalent nature of military environmentalism, and the place of science in the Cold War formation of militarized landscapes. More research topics are available at: www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/researchtopics T +49 30 22 667 0 RESEARCH TOPICS ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jaehwan Hyun is a Postdoctoral Fellow based in Department III (Arti-facts, Action, Knowledge), directed by Dagmar Schäfer. His current research project focuses on how global environmental concerns and related scientific collaborations were entangled with the postcolonial nation-building of South Korea and Japan during the Cold War period.