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Narrating selfhood and personality in South Korea: women and social mobility
Author(s) -
Abelmann Nancy
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1525/ae.1997.24.4.786
Subject(s) - narrative , sociology , personality , agency (philosophy) , gender studies , constitution , convention , social psychology , political science , psychology , social science , law , literature , art
In this article I analyze the constitution of selfhood by exploring those narratives about personality that are at the heart of middle‐aged South Korean women's social mobility stories. In this project I consider agency as a discursive phenomenon: it is not an asset but is instead a particular narrative convention. Thus selfhoods are variously fortified by agency or overdetermined by larger social and historical forces. This article thereby contributes to a narrative understanding of social transformation and the rendering of social justice over periods of rapid social change such as the recent past in post‐Korean War South Korea.

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