Jonghee Lee-Caldararo
I am a PhD candidate from Gegoraphy at the University of Kentucky. I am interested in different types of ordinary urban spaces often taken for granted and essentialized. My dissertation project discusses nighttime practices in 24hr cafes in Seoul, in relation to perceptions of private/public space, sleep, night as well as affective experiences of cafe users which reflects upon individual materiality. Drawing upon my ethnogrphic study, I am seeking to reveal that individual's nighttime consumption cannot be separatable from practices of society, daytime, and production.
In the same vein, my master's thesis sheds light on Mongolian town in Seoul as actually experienced space that is often neglected under the rigid binary oppositions. While many ethnic spaces tend to be represented as though they play a role in maintaining an ethnic group's nationality (or identity), I argue that the space of migrants is in fact entangled with the locality of the destination spaces as well as home space; and ongoingly configured by different agents and practices.
My understanding of (urban) space fundermentally draws upon Doreen Massey's progressive sense of place and Deleuzian rhizome. Similarly, I perceive myself too as becoming being who can be anything and everything at the same time, who is relational, infinitely deforms and reforms, who is open to different truths, and who, nevertheless, never gives up believing in the power of love, care, sincerity, integraity, and passion.
In the same vein, my master's thesis sheds light on Mongolian town in Seoul as actually experienced space that is often neglected under the rigid binary oppositions. While many ethnic spaces tend to be represented as though they play a role in maintaining an ethnic group's nationality (or identity), I argue that the space of migrants is in fact entangled with the locality of the destination spaces as well as home space; and ongoingly configured by different agents and practices.
My understanding of (urban) space fundermentally draws upon Doreen Massey's progressive sense of place and Deleuzian rhizome. Similarly, I perceive myself too as becoming being who can be anything and everything at the same time, who is relational, infinitely deforms and reforms, who is open to different truths, and who, nevertheless, never gives up believing in the power of love, care, sincerity, integraity, and passion.
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Books by Jonghee Lee-Caldararo
practice is gongbu in Korean, or simply put, ‘study.’ I first review South Korea’s economic change and youth’s precarious lives. I then discuss the relationship between such unfavorable socio-economic and political situation and youth’s night-time practice of study at cafés through the three related questions: (1) Why do these young adults engage in study at night in lieu of normal sleep schedule? (2) How do their fatigue become endurable and rationalized? and (3) Why do they work late at cafés instead of their home, or in any other space? I conclude by demonstrating that my research participants’ nocturnal practices are an embodied form of neoliberalism in which young adults take care of themselves. The case study will affirm that
neoliberalism is not just implemented in youth’s lives but bodily experienced and differently and ongoingly adjusted.
Papers by Jonghee Lee-Caldararo
As theoretical apparatuses, the study first discuss concepts including transnationalism, translocality, progress sense of space, and interculturalism. Then, it outlines the trajectory of Mongolian migration based on official statistics of Ministry of immigration in Korea and Mongolia; and analyzes ways in which the Mongolian town is represented in the newspaper and other publications. I finally parallel the analysis with the empirical case of Mongolian town, which illustrates Mongolians’ actual experiences in relation to their migration and place. As preliminary research, I first conduct surveys with 63 Mongolian and casual conversations. Then, I conducted participants observations at Mongolian Town from February to November, 2011. The ethnographic data was supplemented by the second survey with 95 Mongolian and semi-structured interview with 6 Korean and 15 Mongolian. Drawing on the ethnographic study, I argue that Mongolian town does not necessarily play a role in maintaining national identity, but it has been relationally configured and connect between two specific local spaces that pertains to individual Mongolian’s migrant practices. This study affirms that many local places in this global era are constituted by interactions between different scalar places such as global, national, local places and various social networks. Moreover, this paper calls attention to the marginalized and underrepresented experience of an ethnic group and highlights that ethic spaces in the destination country is not a segregated cultural product but intertwined with the pre-existing local space and ongoing differentiated.
practice is gongbu in Korean, or simply put, ‘study.’ I first review South Korea’s economic change and youth’s precarious lives. I then discuss the relationship between such unfavorable socio-economic and political situation and youth’s night-time practice of study at cafés through the three related questions: (1) Why do these young adults engage in study at night in lieu of normal sleep schedule? (2) How do their fatigue become endurable and rationalized? and (3) Why do they work late at cafés instead of their home, or in any other space? I conclude by demonstrating that my research participants’ nocturnal practices are an embodied form of neoliberalism in which young adults take care of themselves. The case study will affirm that
neoliberalism is not just implemented in youth’s lives but bodily experienced and differently and ongoingly adjusted.
As theoretical apparatuses, the study first discuss concepts including transnationalism, translocality, progress sense of space, and interculturalism. Then, it outlines the trajectory of Mongolian migration based on official statistics of Ministry of immigration in Korea and Mongolia; and analyzes ways in which the Mongolian town is represented in the newspaper and other publications. I finally parallel the analysis with the empirical case of Mongolian town, which illustrates Mongolians’ actual experiences in relation to their migration and place. As preliminary research, I first conduct surveys with 63 Mongolian and casual conversations. Then, I conducted participants observations at Mongolian Town from February to November, 2011. The ethnographic data was supplemented by the second survey with 95 Mongolian and semi-structured interview with 6 Korean and 15 Mongolian. Drawing on the ethnographic study, I argue that Mongolian town does not necessarily play a role in maintaining national identity, but it has been relationally configured and connect between two specific local spaces that pertains to individual Mongolian’s migrant practices. This study affirms that many local places in this global era are constituted by interactions between different scalar places such as global, national, local places and various social networks. Moreover, this paper calls attention to the marginalized and underrepresented experience of an ethnic group and highlights that ethic spaces in the destination country is not a segregated cultural product but intertwined with the pre-existing local space and ongoing differentiated.