An Autobiography on the Identity Formation Process of a Young Cultural Studies Researcher and the Engagement of Korean Young Adult Studies
Abstract
This paper delineates the theoretical interests of the author, a young adult who has evolved into a ‘cultural studies researcher,’ and attempts to recollect the motivations for conducting three continuous studies on youth culture. It commences with a personal reflection on the process through which I identify myself as a cultural studies researcher, considering the fact that cultural studies is a non-mainstream and reproductively challenged field within Korean communication studies. Subsequently, it illuminates the issues and difficulties I have experienced when conducting a series of youth-related studies. By doing so, this autobiographical approach aims to foster the revitalization of future (youth) cultural studies.
Conference presentation: 15th Cultural Studies Camp, Seoul, South Korea, 17 August 2017.
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Into the text
“The research process is nothing more than a continuous cycle of positioning ‘theory’ as a ‘tool’ and ‘reality’ as an ‘object’, while simultaneously inversely placing ‘reality’ as a ‘tool’ and ‘theory’ as an ‘object’.”p.6
“If even one of ‘critique’, ‘understanding’, or ‘self-reflection’ is missing, we cannot properly perform ‘critique’, ‘understanding’, or ‘self-reflection’. If we criticize something without ‘understanding’, we would fall into the trap of arbitrariness, blindly lashing out at others or the world only with external criteria. However, if we pursue only ‘understanding’ without ‘critique’, we will simply accept the existing reality laid before us, contributing to the reproduction of the existing system. If we only ‘self-reflect’, we may fall into a self-sufficient perspective that ignores structural effects and blames all problems at an individual level. Without self-reflection, we can only misunderstand ourselves as already always complete subjects within critique and understanding, exclude ourselves, or falsely believe that we already always occupy an objective social position. Therefore, only when we grasp ‘critique’, ‘understanding’, and ‘self-reflection’ at the same time, we may be able to hold a critical epistemological perspective that can change society and ourselves.” p.7
“I took the risk of simplifying diverse youths into a homogeneous group, while conversely using the constitutive effects of the signifier, ‘Cheng-Nyon,’ which consists of various individuals. I aimed to present a kind of ‘shared world’ by revealing our differences and maintaining an imagined community of ‘us’. This is because I believe that only when we can objectify our complex and multi-layered situations, which are not easily captured, through language and representation, can we understand where ‘we’ – a collective deeply intertwined within social relationships and power rather than as isolated ‘I’s – are situated, where we are heading, where we could potentially go, and why we might be unable to get there.” p.18
Dongwook Song 