CHO Hae-Joan (Trans. by Michael SHIN)

Author's Biography:
Haejoang Cho, a Cultural Anthropologist by training and a feminist in standpoint, is a full professor at the Department of Sociology, Yonsei University, Seoul. Cho received her B.A. in history from Yonsei University and PhD in cultural anthropology from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her earlier research focused upon gender studies with a special interest in modern Korean history. Cho's PhD dissertation examined the division of labor between men and women in a diver's community on Cheju Island, Korea. Her current work focuses on cultural studies in the global/local and post-colonial context. Youth, gender, class, education, nationalism, consumer culture, late capitalist society and popular culture are the diverse, related topics of her current research. Cho's major publications include 'Women and Men in South Korea' (1988), 'Reading Texts, Reading Lives in the Post-Colonial Era 1,2,3' (1992, 1994, 1994), 'Children Refusing School, Society Refusing Children' (1996), and 'Introspective Modernity and Feminism' (1998). Cho is also a founding member of the feminist social activist group Alternative Culture (Ttohana ui Munwha). Cho practically implements her research interest in youth issues in Korean society with her directorships of the Yonsei University based Center for Youth and Cultural Studies, and at the new Youth Factory for New Culture in Seoul.

Translator's Biography:
Michael Shin is a PhD candidate in the History Department at University of Chicago.

Abstract:
Subjectivities of the members of the South Korean nation have long been constructed through nationalist discourses centered on ideals of economic supremacy and national unity. The recent 'IMF crisis' has challenged confidence in the hitherto official cultural understandings. The national signifiers of kajok (family) and kukmin (citizen) used in the past to mobilise the citizenry are no longer as effective.