Jieun Kim (Leeds). Blood and Citizenship in a Fragmented Nation: Logics of Gift, Debt and Inheritance in South Korea
| Dates: | 24 March 2025 |
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| Times: | 15:00 - 17:00 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | School of Social Sciences |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, External researchers, Current University students |
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| Speaker: | Jieun Kim |
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Drawing on archival materials and interviews with donors, blood bank staff, and experts, this talk explores how the logics of gift, debt and inheritance shape the moral and affective economies of citizenship in South Korea. From hematologists’ reflections on introducing blood banking in the mid-twentieth century to the national crisis narrative around COVID-19 blood shortages, I show how the figure of nation constantly transforms itself as it animates and is animated by South Korean blood banking. Taking a closer look at the case of North Korean settler blood donors in particular, I argue how their ambiguous belonging opens up a fertile terrain through which relations of gift, debt and inheritance are renegotiated. Blood sharing conjures different collectives and (un)common fates for actors whose belonging to the South Korean nation is contested and renewed, instantiating ‘mutations’ in nationhood and citizenship.
Speaker
Jieun Kim
Organisation: University of Leeds
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
Room 5.205
University Place
Manchester
