Research projects

In the socioeconomics of neo-liberalism, the youth sector in East Asia has struggled with the dilemma between deep-rooted social norms, which have been constructed as “normalities” and “standards” regarding work, marriage, family, and gender relations, and current growing instabilities and uncertainties that they have to face with. This research attempts to call into question the socioeconomic meaning of the current transnational labour mobility of the youth sector in East Asia (in particular, Korea and Japan) to Europe in the neoliberal era.

The research project aimed to empirically prove the changes in and resilience of recruitment practices and management thinking among top managers in Korea and Japan. It was based upon the life-course analysis as well as interviews, in order to examine whether the recruitment practices and management thinking of corporate elites in both economies have converged towards a neo-liberal version of capitalism. The results of this project have been published in peer-reviewed international journals such as Korea Observer and International Journal of Japanese Sociology. (Supported by DFG, Excellent Cluster, Japan-Korea Cultural Foundation, The Academy of Korean Studies)

This research project aimed to clarify the background behind why feminism has failed to spread within Korean unionism, by focusing on the entangled interrelations of feminism with broader social movements – democratization movements, labour movements and new social movements. The results have been presented in international peer-reviewed journals such as Gender Studies and Labor History. (Supported by the Academy of Korean Studies, The Tokai Foundation for Gender Studies, East-West Center).

This research project explored how rural women were newly redefined as labourers, caregivers, mothers, economic actors, and civil actors within the framework of the ideology of housewifery as a new, modern womanhood under Park Chung Hee’s developmental state in the 1960s-1970s. This project remains in process for publication as a monograph manuscript, tentatively titled “Developmental State, Rural Modernity and Women: 1960s-1970s in South Korea. (Supported by the Japanese Government Scholarship, Nomura Foundation)