This study aims to deconstruct the otherness of "Asia" and construct theoretical foundation of "Asian Women's Studies" from post-colonial perspectives beyond Western-centered feminist theory. In other words, it attempts to explore "Asian Women's Studi...
This study aims to deconstruct the otherness of "Asia" and construct theoretical foundation of "Asian Women's Studies" from post-colonial perspectives beyond Western-centered feminist theory. In other words, it attempts to explore "Asian Women's Studies" as a new paradigm which can reflect Asian women's experience and attain autonomy in academia.
As a result, this study provided with theoretical basis which overcomes essentialism and dichotomous approaches, and expanded the institutional practice of Asian Women's Studies' education. Based on this theoretical and academic re-conceptualization, it analyzed the ways in which Asian women living in the First world established their self-identity. It also revealed varied experiences of Asian women with fair trade case in which Asian women practice reciprocal feminist empowerment. In this way, this study remapped Asia and Asian Women's Studies through providing new theoretical frame which can lead to the new analysis of Asia and Asian Women.
(1) Conceptualizing ‘the Asian’ and Asian Women's Studies
This paper is an attempt to re-conceptualize and re-define the categories of 'Asian Women' and 'Asian Women's Studies.' I suggest the development of positive theorization, institution building, and practices of Asian Women's Studies cannot be made by criticizing the limitation of the western standard, but by superseding the dichotomous approaches such as the West vs. the non-West, the global vs. the local, and similarities vs. differences.
(2) Women's Education and Women's Studies in Asian Universities
This study explored the meaning of women's education and the process in which it has been developed in Asia from the social and historical contexts. I examined the curricula of women's studies and conceptualized the category of Asian women's studies with other scholars from Asia. I compared the process of institutionalization of women's studies in Japan, China, and South Korea and constructed alternative theoretical paradigm which can reflect the life and culture of local women.
(3) Voices from the Margin: Trans-territorial Identity of Asian Americans in Asian American Literature
This study analyzes how Asian American women writers portray the search for identity. The research attempts to construct Asian feminist critical frame which can face the complex relationship of Asian culture. It analyzes Asian American women's works to show how Asian American women establish their identities and make "voices of the margin," particularly through the mother-daughter relationship.
(4) Postcolonial Philosophy of Space: Asian Feminisms and It's Space Production in the Glocal Era
The starting point of this study is Asian feminist awareness to the unfettered capitalism which is embedded in the global expansion of commercialization. Asian women have been vulnerable to the lack of resources and the disintegration from their social lives. Furthermore, local patriarchal culture adds pressures on women's life. Through a comparative research among Asian global cities, I empirically examined the quality of the urban women's life from gender perspective. I suggest that the cultural relativizing be mobilized in that process so that we are able to overcome in-group centered point of view.
(5) The De-colonization and Ecofeminist Movement in Asia
I studied the changes on Negros in the Philippines focusing on the women producers and fair trade related Japan and Korean women's lives brought by the participation in fair trade. In the study, the implication was focused on ‘the gender, fair trade and poverty’ and ‘the eco-(feminist) changes’ and 'women as actors building sustainable mode of life. The study focused on fair trade between 'Nepali Bazaro in Japan,' and small businesses in Nepal. The changes brought by fair trade were interpreted as a practice of the eco-locational feminism for reciprocal empowerment.