Melodrama of Mobility: Women, Talk, and Class in Contemporary South Korea

Book Description
How do people make sense of their world in the face of the breakneck speed of contemporary social change? Through the lives and narratives of eight women, The Melodrama of Mobility chronicles South Korea's experience of just such dizzyingly rapid development. Abelmann captures the mood, feeling, and language of a generation and an era while providing a rare window on the personal and social struggles of South Korean modernity. Drawing also from television soap operas and films, she argues that a melodramatic sensibility speaks to South Korea's transformation because it preserves the tension and ambivalence of daily life in unsettled times. The melodramatic mode helps people to wonder: Can individuals be blamed for their social fates? How should we live? Who can say who is good or bad? By combining the ethnographic tools of anthropology, an engagement with prevailing sociological questions, and a literary approach to personal narratives, The Melodrama of Mobility offers a rich portrait of the experience of compressed modernity in the non-West.

About the Author
Nancy Abelmann is associate professor of anthropology, East Asian languages and cultures, and women's studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; she is also a teaching faculty member of Asian American studies.


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From the 1950s through the 1980s, South Korea underwent dramatic social, political, economic, and cultural transformations. In this study, Abelmann analyzes the stories of eight middle-aged Korean women whom she interviewed regarding their experiences of social mobility during this turbulent period. Some of the issues discussed include class distinctions within the family and the ways in which women manage their children's education. Abelmann teaches anthropology, East Asian languages, and women's studies at the U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR


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