Seohyung Kim – MS Thesis Defense Announcement
Not Catastrophic but Quotidian: How Particulate Matter Becomes a Matter in South Korea
Major Professor: Dr. Zoe Nyssa
Wednesday, May 17th at 10:00 AM
Ecological Sciences and Engineering Interdisciplinary Graduate Program
Department of Anthropology
Abstract: Particle pollution in South Korea has become a matter of such public concern that it was declared a “social disaster”
by government proclamation in 2019. My thesis research shows how present interventions to tackle particle pollution in South Korea as a “social disaster” that required expansive monitoring technology infrastructure, is paradoxically contributing to maintaining
the status quo. This study explores how particle pollution has been naturalized and justified anthropogenic pollution through close ethnographic attention to peoples' lived experiences, discourse, and data surrounding particle pollution by mapping citizen-based
knowledge systems in the linking of anthropological, public health, and environmental sciences perspectives. Based on four months of fieldwork, interviews, and collaborative work with residents, scientists, and activists in South Korea, this thesis offers
a new understanding of how citizens’ experiences and knowledge practices have reshaped the concepts of pollution, toxicity, and health. Drawing on scholarship in feminist Science and Technology Studies (STS), medical and environmental anthropology, this study
problematizes harm reduction-based environmental and health intervention practices by describing the current individualized particle pollution responses. The research reveals how people in Korea living with/in particulate matter have perceived, datafied, defined,
adjusted, and responded to particle pollution and its toxicity.
Everyone is welcome! Attached is the defense announcement.
Amy Ledman
She/Her/Hers
Lead Graduate Program Specialist - Ecological Sciences and Engineering
Office of Interdisciplinary Graduate Programs - The Graduate School
Ernest C. Young Hall, Rm B40
155 S. Grant St.
West Lafayette, IN 47907
o: 765-494-5865 f: 765-496-6271
Schedule a meeting:
calendly.com/aledman
