Conducting Multi-Sited Ethnography in Asia: A Graduate Student Workshop with Minwoo Jung (Part 1)
In October 2022, Professor Minwoo Jung was invited to deliver a talk on “Queering Authoritarianism: The Politics of Rights in South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan” at the University of Toronto, which was co-sponsored by the Centre for the Study of Korea, the Mark S. Bonham Centre for the Sexual Diversity Studies, the Department of Sociology, the Women and Gender Studies Institute, and the Centre for the Southeast Asian Studies and the Global Taiwan Studies Program at the Asian Institute, University of Toronto.
In addition to the talk, a graduate student workshop was conducted with Professor Jung, moderated by Pamela Tsui and Matthew Muchas, editors of the Taiwan Gazette. In the workshop, Professor Jung shared his experiences of conducting field research in multiple Asian countries, as well as his journey as an international student and Asian scholar in North America and his involvement with queer activism and scholarship.
The conversation is published in the Taiwan Gazette in three parts. The first part features Professor Jung discussing his multi-sited ethnography project in Taiwan, Singapore, and South Korea, as well as the challenges and opportunities of conducting comparative ethnographic research in Asia. In the second part, he shares insights on how LGBT activists in different countries can learn from each other and discusses his experience balancing activism and research. In the final part, Professor Jung offers advice for international and queer studies students navigating North American academe, particularly in addressing the tension between Western theories and Asian contexts in research.
The conversation was conducted in English and has been edited for clarity.
Minwoo Jung is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies and Gender Studies at Loyola University Chicago. His research investigates the impacts of global and regional geopolitics on political, economic, and social life of marginalized groups and individuals. Drawing on multi-sited fieldwork conducted across East and Southeast Asia, he is working on a book project that presents a comparative ethnography of the intimate entanglements of queer lives and geopolitics. His work has been published in The British Journal of Sociology, The Sociological Review, Social Movement Studies, and positions: asia critique. He received his Ph.D. in sociology in 2021 from the University of Southern California.
We extend our sincere gratitude to Professor Hae Yeon Choo for her efforts in organizing the graduate student workshop.
Edited and photos by P. Tsui
Taiwan Gazette: Your dissertation project is a multi-sited ethnography that involved conducting comparative research in Taiwan, Singapore, and South Korea. Could you share with us how you conceived of this project and why you chose these three countries for comparison?
Minwoo Jung: Thank you so much for asking the question. I still remember that winter in early 2015 when I was in my first year of the Ph.D. program. I was working with a mentor who was about to have her two-year sabbatical combined with multiple fellowships. She suggested that I choose my dissertation topic as soon as possible, which was such a fresh start for a first year! (Laugh) At the time, I was interested in studying queer life and struggles in Korea, which had been an interest of mine from the beginning of my Ph.D. journey.
During the summer of 2015, I coincidentally visited Korea around the same time as my advisor’s invited talk at Ewha Womans University in Seoul. While meeting with my advisor at a Baskin Robbins in front of the university, she casually asked me what I was going to do for my Ph.D. project. She suggested that I focus on the absence of laws regarding homosexuality and transgenderism in Korea and call it “legal absence.” In order to see how legal absence works, she advised that I conduct a comparative project to study three different cases of legal frameworks, including legal inclusion and repression, regarding how the state treats LGBTQ people.
To make a fair comparison I had to choose cases that were comparable. For the case of South Korea, it was easy to choose Singapore among other developed parts of Asia since it has a history of criminalizing homosexuality. The remaining question was whether to study Taiwan or Japan. Since I did not know how to speak the language and did not know anybody in either of these countries, it was all hypothetical. However, during the winter of early 2016, I conducted pilot interviews with activists in South Korea who directed me toward studying Taiwan. They were interested in someone studying Taiwan. They also had some ties with Taiwanese activist groups that focused on litigation strategies for Taiwanese marriage equality, such as TAPCPR,[1] founded in 2009. The Korean activists were aware of the activities of these groups, but they did not have the time and capacity to conduct in-depth research. Therefore, I agreed to study Taiwan for the sake of improving activism. The choice was made to enhance activism, and the justification for the site selection was further refined as I wrote my dissertation.
Professor Minwoo Jung sharing his experiences and insights on doing field research and queer activism in Asia with graduate students at the University of Toronto during the workshop.
Taiwan Gazette: What are the opportunities and challenges in conducting comparative ethnographic research in Asia, especially in relation to your positionality as a Korean/American scholar?
Minwoo Jung: I didn’t have any contacts in Singapore or Taiwan prior to my research, but activists introduced me to organizations like TAPCPR. Through these connections, Taiwanese activists connected me to Singaporean activists and vice versa. I was able to tap into a transnational, weak-tied inter-Asian activist network and tried to connect with relevant academic networks. In order to do so, I secured academic affiliations in Taiwan, Singapore, and South Korea. I also approached local feminist and queer scholars to help connect me with relevant groups, such as feminist organizations, ally organizations, or larger human rights associations.
When it comes to my positionality, I believe it’s not just about my demographic traits or characteristics but also how they are interpreted and situated differently in different contexts. For example, my Korean identity coincided with different geopolitical contexts, leading to imagined affinities within Taiwan and Singapore. They saw me as someone who shared the colonial history and social-economic development experiences. The rising cultural power of Korea also aided in opening certain doors due to the imagined closeness associated with being Korean. But this also came with pressure to embody certain Korean characteristics. During the early stages of establishing contacts and rapport, many of my Singaporean friends wanted to take me to Korean restaurants and have me assess the authenticity of the food. They also asked for my opinion on different K-pop bands. On one occasion, when I visited an LGBTQ group in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, they even asked me to play my favorite K-pop band (Laugh). As a graduate student, I didn’t have the time nor the interest in listening to K-pop, so I played some music from 2009 or 2010. Later, I realized that they already had an answer in mind - it had to be Twice, a group that has a Taiwanese member. Tzuyu, the Taiwanese member of the group, was involved in a geopolitical incident.[2] This was seen as a cultural threat from China infiltrating the K-pop industry. Their expectations of my answer and embodiment of being Korean were very interesting.
On the other hand, my diasporic identity as someone pursuing my degree outside of Korea was downplayed or underestimated by some informants. This was also interesting because at the same time, despite not being a US citizen or permanent resident, my ability to speak English fluently and pursue a degree from a reputable university afforded me cultural capital, particularly among my Singaporean friends. They viewed me as an equally cosmopolitan elite, which was useful as I was studying corporate activism in Singapore. Many of the activists and organizers inside and outside corporations hold degrees from Australia or the UK. They might have treated me differently if my English had a stronger accent or if I did not attend a reputable university, as they saw me as an equal cosmopolitan elite. The associated cultural norm was that I had to dress up, not necessarily in formal attire, but to present myself well in corporate spaces. As a graduate student, I tried my best to dress appropriately, but you know, it was definitely a challenge. (Laugh)
Being a non-white Asian researcher also helped me pass as one of them. In Taiwan, I could easily pass as a Taiwanese person, while in Singapore, I could also pass as an ethnically Chinese Singaporean or an American-born Chinese. These recognitions were interesting as I compared it with the experiences of my fellow white ethnographers studying in Taiwan or Singapore. White privilege exists in a very particular way in many East Asian societies, and there are accessibility issues due to differences in skin colour and phenotypes. Being able to pass in many places in Singapore and Taiwan opened many doors for me.
But the combination of my Korean and Americanness received varied responses. In Taiwan, where there is a strong emphasis on sovereignty activism and the pursuit of support from the international community, my work as a scholar studying and writing about Taiwan was seen as important by my Taiwanese friends and colleagues. They saw me as an ally and friend of Taiwan but not of China, and it was culturally expected that I would not speak favourably about China. Once, when I referred to the language they spoke as Chinese, they became furious, emphasizing that it was Mandarin. Their perception of me as an ally was linked to their expectation that I would not be an ally of mainland China, and they wanted to erase the Chinese marker from their conversations and daily interactions.
In South Korea, because of my existing ties with some activist members and as a queer person, I was considered part of them. However, they wanted to know if I was committed to contributing to their cause. Due to the political culture of anti-imperialism among Korean progressives, including LGBTQ rights activists, they questioned if I represented the American empire or perpetuated the tradition of colonizing activist knowledge. I was also asked if I was interested in returning, as there has been only one openly queer professor in South Korea since 2008. I had to assure them that I was interested in returning. These questions will be discussed in more detail in my book projects’ methodological appendix.
[1] The Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights (台灣伴侶權益推動聯盟,TAPCPR) is an organization that promotes legislation for diversified family formation in Taiwan, with campaigns and rallies aimed at gaining support and recognition from society and lawmakers.
[2] In November 2015, Tzuyu, a member of the K-pop group Twice, appeared on a Korean variety show holding the flag of Taiwan, which angered mainland Chinese internet users. Tzuyu was later pulled from endorsement deals with Chinese companies and Twice was barred from Chinese television. Her agency then released a video of Tzuyu's apology, which said she was "proud to be Chinese." The video sparked outrage in Taiwan, and some believed that the incident have affected the 2016 Taiwanese general election.
