공간적 위계수사와 구별짓기: 강북 어머니들의 자녀교육 내러티브 = Spatial Stratification Tropes and Making Distinctions: Kangbuk Mothers` Narratives of Their Children`s Education

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This paper explores the diverse ways in which mothers in the Kangbuk area of Seoul utilize tropes of spatial stratification-both distinctions of housing type and of residential gaps-when they discuss social differences among mothers and their styles of managing their children`s education. There are subtly different ways in which the diverse women express class anxiety and relative social deprivation, mobilizing tropes closely intertwined with the ambivalent gendered discourse of educational manager mothers. I argue that the spatial tropes themselves reflect socially constructed material and cultural meanings and values attached to different places and to those who reside in those places. On the other hand, while using spatial tropes in their narratives, the women also construct social networks-often exclusive -in which the social worth attached to each place and its residents are circulated and reinforced. This process illustrates how diverse women negotiate or even attempt at great cost to cross the spatial boundaries, by using narratives of spatial stratification and navigating the different places. Based on my ethnographic research (2001/7-2003/6) among mothers across the class spectrum in the Kangbuk area of Seoul, this paper focuses on mothers` perceptions of class identity expressed through their spatial distinction narratives, employing tropes like apartment mothers or Kangnam mothers. Here I do not treat class as a simple and static independent variable. Instead of using the traditional interest-based approach of class, I follow the critical scholars who emphasize the relational approachand narrative approach which consider class as processes and relations, rather than locations or things.I look beyond the labor market to draw attention to how people construct themselves as subjects through narratives, following the interdisciplinary scholars in South Korea and abroad who are interested in how class and space are intertwined in diverse cities. To analyze the privilege of the Kangnam area, the concept of concentrated affluence is applied. Utilizing these theoretical approaches, women`s desire for social mobility through their children`s education is shown to be closely related to their spatial mobility desire in the current topology of Seoul.