Eunchae Kwon
PhD Student
M.A., Anthropology, Seoul National University, 2022
B.A., Anthropology, Seoul National University, 2019
Specialties
Family and Kinship; More-than-human family; Anthropology of ethics and morality; Care; Parenthood; Intimacy; Interspecies relations; Gender and sexuality; East Asia (South Korea)
I am largely interested in the ways Korean women are building their own intimacies with other beings in the context of extremely low fertilities, backlash against feminism, and politically framed ‘national demographic crises’ of South Korean society. Though they are still expected to marry a man and give birth to their own children with him, young women in South Korea are struggling to deal with those social pressure upon themselves by building their own form of intimacies within and outside the heteronormative marriage customs of Korea. In specific, my research will concentrate on their practices related to the so called ‘companion animals’ in the specific procedures of animal adoption and the ways these women forge the ethics of care and responsibility for those animals. Adoption is still not a common way to make animals a member of family in South Korea, but Korean women are actively involved in promoting and conducting adoption as the ‘ethical’ way to have animals as life-lasting companions while criticizing the commodification of ‘pet’ animals in the industries through various channels. Based on this research, I aim to argue that these novel relationships of more-than-human family could challenge or even reconstruct the notion of family itself beyond its patriarchal and anthropocentric aspects in contemporary South Korea.
Publications
Korean