Becoming a "Legitimate" Ancestor: A Sociocultural Understanding of a Sonless Jamnyeo's Life Story

The retrospective reflections of a sixty two year old sonless widow jamnyeo (traditional career ocean diving woman on Jeju Island, South Korea) on her experiences as a marginal figure in her late husband's family are examined from sociocultural perspectives. This paper presents sociocultural in...

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Main Author: Gui-Young Hong
Format: Article
Language:deu
Published: FQS 2004-09-01
Series:Forum: Qualitative Social Research
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/565
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author Gui-Young Hong
author_facet Gui-Young Hong
author_sort Gui-Young Hong
collection DOAJ
description The retrospective reflections of a sixty two year old sonless widow jamnyeo (traditional career ocean diving woman on Jeju Island, South Korea) on her experiences as a marginal figure in her late husband's family are examined from sociocultural perspectives. This paper presents sociocultural interpretative analyses of the jamnyeo's life events and her experiences lived in the island's historical and sociocultural contexts. Analyses focus on three theoretical notions: sociocultural embeddedness, continuity and discontinuity between collective and personal cultures, and joint constructions. The jamnyeo's storytelling and life story, from the perspective of sociocultural theory, reveals active, goal-oriented attempts to transform her marginal social position into a culturally virtuous one of "legitimate" ancestor. On an individual plane, the jamnyeo subjectively transformed sociocultural voices demanding virtuous womanhood into mediational tools catalyzing and facilitating her life-long struggle to transform her social position from the margins to the center of her husband's family. On a sociocultural plane, her story reveals the dualistic nature of sociocultural voices both as forces; guiding, influencing, and structuring the ways individuals construct and reconstruct their lives; and as products which active social agents construct and transform. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0403198
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spelling doaj.art-31871bdf0b4a4518917c35eed3c102fb2022-12-22T03:11:41ZdeuFQSForum: Qualitative Social Research1438-56272004-09-0153552Becoming a "Legitimate" Ancestor: A Sociocultural Understanding of a Sonless Jamnyeo's Life StoryGui-Young Hong0Sumter Children and Families StudyThe retrospective reflections of a sixty two year old sonless widow jamnyeo (traditional career ocean diving woman on Jeju Island, South Korea) on her experiences as a marginal figure in her late husband's family are examined from sociocultural perspectives. This paper presents sociocultural interpretative analyses of the jamnyeo's life events and her experiences lived in the island's historical and sociocultural contexts. Analyses focus on three theoretical notions: sociocultural embeddedness, continuity and discontinuity between collective and personal cultures, and joint constructions. The jamnyeo's storytelling and life story, from the perspective of sociocultural theory, reveals active, goal-oriented attempts to transform her marginal social position into a culturally virtuous one of "legitimate" ancestor. On an individual plane, the jamnyeo subjectively transformed sociocultural voices demanding virtuous womanhood into mediational tools catalyzing and facilitating her life-long struggle to transform her social position from the margins to the center of her husband's family. On a sociocultural plane, her story reveals the dualistic nature of sociocultural voices both as forces; guiding, influencing, and structuring the ways individuals construct and reconstruct their lives; and as products which active social agents construct and transform. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0403198http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/565sociocultural embeddednessstory­telling and re-tellingcollective cultural idealspersonal culturesjoint constructionpositioningpersonal transformation
spellingShingle Gui-Young Hong
Becoming a "Legitimate" Ancestor: A Sociocultural Understanding of a Sonless Jamnyeo's Life Story
Forum: Qualitative Social Research
sociocultural embeddedness
story­telling and re-telling
collective cultural ideals
personal cultures
joint construction
positioning
personal transformation
title Becoming a "Legitimate" Ancestor: A Sociocultural Understanding of a Sonless Jamnyeo's Life Story
title_full Becoming a "Legitimate" Ancestor: A Sociocultural Understanding of a Sonless Jamnyeo's Life Story
title_fullStr Becoming a "Legitimate" Ancestor: A Sociocultural Understanding of a Sonless Jamnyeo's Life Story
title_full_unstemmed Becoming a "Legitimate" Ancestor: A Sociocultural Understanding of a Sonless Jamnyeo's Life Story
title_short Becoming a "Legitimate" Ancestor: A Sociocultural Understanding of a Sonless Jamnyeo's Life Story
title_sort becoming a legitimate ancestor a sociocultural understanding of a sonless jamnyeo s life story
topic sociocultural embeddedness
story­telling and re-telling
collective cultural ideals
personal cultures
joint construction
positioning
personal transformation
url http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/565
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