Biography
Dissertation: Expressive Struggles: Neoliberal Temporalities and Social Reproduction of Feminized Labor in South Korea
Jiwoon worked as an international project coordinator at government institutions and feminist organizations in Seoul. In 2010, Jiwoon organized "Gender Justice Action" against G20 Seoul Summit with a group of feminist organizations. Jiwoon's research is based on her experience of feminist policy and activism in South Korea.
Jiwoon's dissertation “Expressive Struggle: Neoliberal Temporality and Feminized Labor in South Korea” examines the emergence of old and new feminized laboring subjects in South Korean labor movement since the 1960s. South Korean state’s heightened anxiety over labor control after the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis has been expressed through immediate structural reforms and prolonged labor law reforms. Looking closely at the dynamics between the state’s legal rhetoric and the newly emerged working class struggle, pijŏnggyujik [contingent worker] movement, her research questions the political possibilities and limits of the reified labor relations and the new labor struggle in South Korea.
Areas of Jiwoon's interests include Marxist critical theory, transnational feminisms, studies on intimacy and modernity, queer of color critique, and critical queer temporalities.
Jiwoon received Martha H. Duggan Fellowship in Caring Labor (2016-2017) from Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies and completed her fieldwork in Seoul, South Korea with the support of UW International Research Fellowship (2014).