Social Science Forum: Issue 111
Discrimination by association based on disability: unequal treatment and stigmatization of informal family carers at work and employment
Zdenka Šadl
Abstract: The article discusses the concept of discrimination by association (hereinafter “DA”), which is less widely understood than discrimination based on direct victims’ personal circumstances. In focus is DA against family carers of people with disabilities in the field of work and employment, while the potential and limitations of this concept in achieving greater equality for workers with caring responsibilities is examined. Notwithstanding some limitations and weaknesses, legal recognition of the DA concept is shown to have a potentially strong positive impact on ensuring equality for carers of disabled and elderly people in the workplace.
Keywords: discrimination by association, work, employment, legislation, informal carers
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Introduction to the thematic block: Reconfiguring the Korean Diaspora
Kang Byoung Yoong in Rajesh Kumar
Biopolitical diasporic human figures: dystopian narratives in the works of Kazuo Ishiguro and Change-Rae Lee
Kang Byoung Yoong
Abstract: The article examines how dystopian narratives shaped by biopolitics produce specific human figures and modes of existence rather than merely depicting passive victims of repression. Focusing on Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro and On Such a Full Sea by Chang rae Lee, the way biopolitical power operates through the normalisation and management of life instead of overt violence or exclusion is analysed. Drawing on Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben, attention is then shifted from power itself to the forming of sensibilities, relational practices, and everyday life under biopolitical conditions. Following comparative analysis, the concept of the biopolitical diasporic human figure is proposed; namely, a form of life that persists without stable protection while remaining fully embedded in regimes of management and normalised vulnerability.
Keywords: biopolitics, dystopian literature, diaspora, human figures, contemporary fiction
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The Story of Kimchi: Identity and Diaspora of Zainichi
Nataša Visočnik Gerželj
Abstract: The article examines kimchi’s transformation from a stigmatised “immigrant food” to become Japan’s most popular preserved vegetable, highlighting its role in identity negotiation among Zainichi Koreans living in Japan. Methods include ethnographic field work in Kyoto, interviews, examination of a book and website produced by a kimchi store, along with a literature review on diaspora foods with emphasis placed on the life history of Lee Yeon Soon as a central case study. The results show that kimchi is a cultural anchor and performative symbol/portrayal of Korean identity. Even as kimchi becomes ever more mainstream, indicating Korea’s growing multiculturalism, Korean residents use it to stake a
claim for identity and resist assimilation. It is concluded that food acts as a means of communication, which constructs identities and social relationships.
Keywords: Korean diaspora, ethnic food, identity, kimchi, Japan
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Diaspora as Horror in Peninsula: A Psychoanalytic Perspective
EuiJin Hur
Abstract: This article examines horror in Peninsula (2020) through the Lacanian concept of extimacy. Rather than treating zombies as external monsters, it argues that horror arises through the transformation of familiar spaces, names, and social relations. Using a theory-led close reading with visual and narrative analysis, the article focuses on displacement, symbolic naming, and the uncanny reconfiguration of Korean urban space. “Diaspora” is employed in a limited analytical sense to describe the film’s representation of displacement, failed return, and symbolic exclusion. It argues that horror emerges from the extimate relation between home and exile, while zombies and displaced figures function as symptomatic images of exclusion, survival, and the persistence of capitalist logics after social collapse.
Keywords: horror cinema, extimacy, diaspora, zombie, Lacanian film theory
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Singing Belonging: A Korean Diaspora Women's Choir As a Cultural Practice and Community-Building in Austria
Sun Young Yun
Abstract: As a site of diasporic cultural practice and community care, the article examines the Vienna Korean Women’s Choir (VKWC) founded in 2007 by first-generation Korean migrant women in Austria. Drawing on participant observation (2017–2024) and interviews conducted in 2024–2025, this qualitative study explores how sustained choir participation enables migrant women to negotiate ageing, gendered care responsibilities, and belonging. The choir is found to function as a gendered third space where informal care ethics are enacted through dense interpersonal relationships. Combining Korean art songs with Western classical works, the VKWC sustains cultural memory while fostering meaningful ageing. Performances in nursing homes and cultural venues constitute everyday cultural diplomacy, permitting members to reposition themselves from former migrant labourers to active cultural agents.
Keywords: Korean diaspora in Austria, women’s choir, care ethics, meaningful ageing
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The reality and self-identity of Korean immigrant women in America in the early 20th century: Comparative analysis of historical records and literary works
Boram Han & Yesul Han
Abstract:The research examines the experiences and representations of early-twentieth-century Korean immigrant women by integrating historical documents, oral narratives and literary representation. It addresses the persistent marginalisation of women in studies of Korean migration to the United States, particularly Hawaiʼi. Juxtaposing newspaper articles, picture bride testimonies and Eugenia Kim’s The Calligrapher’s Daughter, the study reveals that these women actively exercised agency through migration, education and family decision-making
under conditions of colonial rule and gendered constraint. Rather than passive dependents, these women strategically pursued education and mobility for themselves and their children. The article concludes that education functioned as a central means through which Korean immigrant women constructed selfhood and asserted historical subjectivity within a transnational and colonial modernity.
Keywords: Korean immigrant women, picture bride, The Calligrapher’s Daughter, women’s agency, education and mobility
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Book Reviews
Anna Lavizzari Judith Butler: Who’s Afraid of Gender? United Kingdom: Penguin Random House, 2024.
Mojca Šebart Kovač Zdenko Kodelja: Vednost o nevednosti: premišljevanja o šolstvu v času pandemije. Ljubljana: Krtina, 2024.
Tina Kogovšek Zdravko Mlinar: Družboslovno raziskovanje med profesionalizacijo in podružbljanjem, drugi zvezek, občanska znanost. Ljubljana: Slovenska akadamija znanosti in umetnosti, 2024.
Blaž Lenarčič Aleksandra Kanjuo Mrčela in Andrej Kohont (ur.): Digitalizacija dela in življenja. Ljubljana: Fakulteta za družbene vede, Založba FDV, 2024.