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Tue, August 20, 2019 | 18:37

Exploring K-spaces: The new playgrounds of Seoul

Back in 2015, after a conference presentation in which I likened the new use of public spaces in Seoul to “noriteo” (놀이터) in terms of their social use, a prominent and obviously conservative Korean sociologist came up to me and told me I was completely wrong, and that I misunderstood the way the word was used in Korean. I chalked up this bit of K-splaining criticism to him si...

2018-10-06 10:13

Fashion field notes from Danang

As an ethnographer, I'm always thinking about people, the groups they see themselves as part of, and the way they define discrete cultures. As a visual sociologist, I think about our extremely visual culture in which identity and the very important economic acts of consumption that define our place and worth in society are all focused through images and acts of display.

2018-08-26 09:21

Multiculturalism: Korea's most obstinate 'iron cage'

I'm going to do something writers aren't supposed to do - lose the reader immediately. Well, that's not actually my goal, since I'm doing this deliberately with the goal of making a point. And the first line of this piece, along with the gob-stopping opening image, should be enough to attract sufficient attention.

2018-08-05 09:01

The battle for normal and the queering of Korea

In 1991, Paris was burning. When I was a freshman in college, I could barely wrap my brain around that film - “Paris Is Burning.” I could barely process what I was seeing. I had never seen such aberrant behaviors, had no idea that it constituted a vibrant (and seemingly fun!) gay (and black/Latino!?) subculture, nor how someone could possibly have recorded it so honestly in a...

2018-07-26 14:22

The reformation of Korean tradition: the gae-ryang hanbok

“Tradition” in Korea is a commodity. And like any commodity, it can be bought and sold. It can be remixed and altered. It can also be left alone. Additionally, it can also be repurposed, misused, and even “upgraded.” And there is no stronger, purer, and unapologetically, nationalistically boastful cultural object-symbol in Korean culture than the?hanbok, Korea's traditional d...

2018-07-16 14:54

No free lunches - paying one's way in ethnographic research

As a visual sociologist, I am fascinated by identity markers, display, and community formation. I am also fascinated by the idea value, power, and social utility of the picture, as both a social tool and a tool of social investigation. This is actually what I teach in my visual sociology classes?- _ and yes, there is a textbook called Visual Sociology, published by Routledge ...

2018-07-01 13:01

The cultural politics of the overwrought style

I begin this essay by quoting Korean rapper/K-POP star CL in “Bad Girl” quoting ur-rap group Run-DMC in their song “Peter Piper” as I point out that I am talking about “bad” in the sense of “not bad meaning bad but bad meaning good.” If one were to apply the notion of “overdoing it on purpose”- or what Koreans would call “o-ba” for “over” and the young people call “extra” tod...

2018-06-24 13:51

Gender, 'visual rebellion' and why identity is such a drag

The days when drag queens were just gay guys who dressed up flamboyantly in women's clothes were such simple times. It seems pretty simple - “flaming” gay man puts on a wig, heels and makeup and puts on a maudlin display of femininity. We've all seen it through the “drag ball” in its most appropriated form, as the saccharine television production packaged and presented by RuP...

2018-06-07 15:38

Heralds of their ages: The Flaneur and the Paepi

The French flaneur has a long and storied history in the academic consideration of the growth of cities and modernity. As actual and rhetorically constructed social characters, they are both products of the moment they occur in and also the symbols of their respective ages. They are both actual, embodied products of their Zeitgeists and also the made-up characters that signif...

2018-05-06 13:43

Black Steel in the hour of Korean hip-hop

The colors of Korean hip-hop right now, as expressed through Korean rapper Changstarr at club Lucid Dream in Itaewon. All photos by Michael HurtBy Michael HurtI got a letter from a promoterThe other dayI opened and read itIt said they were hip-hopThey wanted me to take photos of whateverPictures and me and OG rappers, I said whenever!In actuality, I saw the news come across m...

2018-04-12 15:31

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