Women and the Construction of Science and Technology: The Case of Pre-modern Korea

Abstract

This presentation deals with the construction of science and technology in terms of gender. The word “construction” has a double meaning. On the one hand, it refers to the dominant modern perceptual and institutional construction of Science and Technology, with its implications in terms of gender, race, and modernity. On the other hand, it refers to the construction of science and technology in the daily practices of non-professional people, especially women, in pre-modern Korea. This presentation argues that the former leads to blindness in the latter, and that seeing/recovering women’s everyday work as scientific and technological practices demands and is demanded by a theoretical reconceptualization of science and technology.