Over the last 20 years, North Korea has undergone a dramatic social and economic transformation. While the old facade of Juchestyle state socialism is maintained, actual economic life is determined by a multitude of private enterprises. The present article, based largely on interviews with North Koreans, traces the impact these social changes have had on family life. In many respects, the North Korean society is reminiscent of the post-socialist societies of the Eastern Europe and USSR. However, the disintegration of the state socialist regime has not led to the deterioration in the relative position of women in North Korea. In fact, their social standing has improved, as women have assumed important positions in the newly emerging North Korean private economy. Paradoxically, this prominence came about because of the earlier discriminatory policies and practices which marginalized women and excluded them from the ‘proper’ state-led economy. Interestingly, the new economy has emerged on the margins, and from the very beginning has mainly been dominated by women.

India in Love: Marriage and Sexuality in the 21st Century

Useless Men, Entrepreneurial Women, and North Korea's Post-Socialism: Transformation of Gender Roles Since the Early 1990s

This inquiry investigated the problematisation of interethnic intimacy in the New Zealand Indian population. In order to comprehensively explore this topic, this inquiry synthesised two disparate bodies of literature. It adopted a Hindu-Indian cultural perspective to illuminate issues surrounding love, sexuality, and partner selection, and integrated it with existing Western research on interethnic intimacy. Both bodies of work are significant to consider in their own right. Scholarly attention has been given to the experiences and challenges faced by Indian immigrants in Western countries, especially where it concerns family life and adjustment to Western social norms. However, little research addresses Indian attitudes towards love, sexuality, and romantic relationships, an area which has conventionally been characterised by silence in immigrant Indian families. On the other hand, interethnic relationships have conventionally been referred to in the literature as a measure of relations between ethnic groups. However, they also violate normative endogamous partner selection. The repercussions of this nonnormativity are profound for interethnic couples, as they frequently experience opposition from those around them. Interethnic relationships seem to be particularly challenging for Indian society. Thus, this thesis analyses the problematisation of interethnic intimacy using Indian understandings of partner selection. This inquiry employed a feminist-poststructuralist paradigm and was divided into two studies. Study 1 examined the attitudes held by Indian adults in New Zealand towards partner selection. Data was collected using interviews and focus groups with Indian adults between the ages of 21 and 65 in Auckland. In Study 2, Indian adults in New Zealand over the age of 21 who were in heterosexual, interethnic romantic relationships were recruited. Data was collected through reflexive photography and semi-structured interviews. All data was analysed using discourse analysis. Findings indicated the changing nature of Indian culture in New Zealand. Young Indian adults endorsed liberal approaches to love, sexuality, and partner selection, indicating changes in values about dating, interethnic relationships, and premarital cohabitation. However, reticence towards interethnic relationships persisted in varying degrees. Indian adults in interethnic relationships experienced challenges with: familial relationships; cultural integration; identity; and racial microaggressions, which rendered them vulnerable compared to Indian co-ethnic couples. These findings have farreaching implications for New Zealand’s Indian population, as well as for health practitioners and researchers.

A Feminist-poststructuralist Investigation of the Experiences of Indian Adults in Interethnic Romantic Relationships in New Zealand

This article demonstrates social mechanisms that contribute to the expropriation of remarried war widows’ symbolic capital in Israeli society. Its main arguments are based on an interpretation of the marriage habitus of remarried Israeli war widows. Twenty-eight people (15 war widows, 12 husbands, and one matchmaker who “specializes” in helping widows remarry) were interviewed. Using Bourdieusian analytical theory, I analyze the marriage habitus of the remarried war widows. These women manage to convert their symbolic capital into social capital and remarry high-status never-married men. This marriage habitus constitutes a major mechanism that deflects their symbolic capital and facilitates its transmission to their second husbands. Once a widow has remarried, she loses a large part of the symbolic capital because of the accepted notion that remarriage contributes significantly to her family’s rehabilitation. This article provides some insights into the gender norms that contribute to the expropriation of the widow’s symbolic capital and preserving gender inequalities through the reproduction of male symbolic capital in the Zionist state.

The Marriage Habitus of Remarried Israeli War and Terror Widows and the Reproduction of Male Symbolic Capital

This is a preliminary analysis of the Ewha Global Empowerment Program (EGEP), a unique educational program for women activists from Asia and Africa offered by Ewha Womans University. Many feminist scholars teaching women’s studies or feminist courses at universities and in adult education programs remark on the many changes feminism has produced in terms of awareness regarding gender discrimination, the numerous social advances for empowering women individually and socially and contributing to the creation of real life changes. The capacity of women’s studies to bring about individual and social change is not only because of feminist ideology, but also due to the praxis of feminist pedagogy. Accordingly, research and analysis on feminist pedagogy should reveal the praxis and impact of feminisms, and are very important for the expansion of women’s studies and feminist education. In this context, the present study, based on the case of EGEP as a field of ‘Asian Feminist Pedagogy,’ will look at the concrete makeup of the program and analyze the effects of its praxis on its Asian women activist participants. This study has three parts. The first will briefly review the concept and theory of ‘Asian feminisms,’ which comprise the epistemological backdrop and theoretical framework of EGEP. The second part explains how the concept of Asian Feminisms is being implemented and practiced as feminist pedagogy. The third part analyzes the experience of the Asian women activists who participated in EGEP to show how it empowers women and produces ‘Asian women subjects.’

Asian feminist pedagogy and women's empowerment: A preliminary analysis of EGEP

Multiculturalism is a hot issue in Korea. Until recently, Korea was a country with only one ethnic group. However, in the last 20 years, a lot of immigrants have come into Korea and their number is now over 1.45 million, about 3 percent of Korea’s total population.　They are migrant laborers, marriage migrant women, returning overseas Koreans, students from other countries, refugees, and so on. However, the Korean government and society have focused most their attention on just one group: marriage migrant women who have married Korean men. These women are often from countries, such as China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Mongolia, Cambodia, Uzbekistan, and Russia. Since policies are more focused on this group, they receive a lot of financial support and other help from the Korean government, local governments, and NGOs. In contrast, non-Korean Asian men married to Korean women are not eligible to receive such assistance as the government does not respect or help marriage migrant men married to Korean women. Based on my own experience of being married to a non-Korean man, I found that Korea’s marriage immigration policy is rooted in gender-based discrimination. In the Transnational Asia Women’s Network (“TAW Network”), we try to help foreign women married to Korean men, but we struggle for equal support for all Koreans married to foreigners, women or men. Therefore, our activities are focused on combating racism and sexism. In this paper, I will discuss the double isolation and multiple difficulties faced by Korean women married　to non-Korean Asian men, as well as the activities of the TAW Network. This is based on my own experience and the experiences of other members of our organization.

India in Love: Marriage and Sexuality in the 21st Century

Citations

Useless Men, Entrepreneurial Women, and North Korea's Post-Socialism: Transformation of Gender Roles Since the Early 1990s

A Feminist-poststructuralist Investigation of the Experiences of Indian Adults in Interethnic Romantic Relationships in New Zealand

The Marriage Habitus of Remarried Israeli War and Terror Widows and the Reproduction of Male Symbolic Capital

Asian feminist pedagogy and women's empowerment: A preliminary analysis of EGEP

Isolation and Difficulties of Korean Women Married to Non-Korean Asian Men

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