The Candlelight Protest and the Politics of the Baby Stroller Brigades

& (2010). The Candlelight Protest and the Politics of the Baby Stroller Brigades. Korea Journal, 50(3), 71-99, https://doi.org/10.25024/kj.2010.50.3.71

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Abstract

This article is an ethnographic study of the “baby stroller brigades” (BSB) that represents one of the many Internet-based communities that attracted public attention in Korea during the candlelight protest of 2008. In this article, we raise several heuristic questions. First, why and how did the BSB produce such sensationalist public attention? Second, who led the BSB and who were the active members in the BSB? Third, what were the specific strategies and types of political mobilizations the BSB engaged in during the candlelight protest?Finally, what are the BSB members doing now? In answering these questions,this article argues that the sociocultural ideas about married middle-aged women, called ajumma, in Korean society are closely associated with the huge debates on the BSB members’ activities despite their relatively minor role in the protest. Despite the limitation, most BSB members expanded their political view to include larger social issues. However, their efforts are continuously confined within the sociocultural constraints that they have as ajumma.

keywords: mad cow disease, risk society, candlelight protest, baby stroller brigades, middle-class women, maternity, patriarchy, everyday life politics, subjectivity, sociocultural constraints, social movement

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Article Contents

Vol.50 No.3

The Candlelight Protest and the Politics of the Baby Stroller Brigades

Abstract

Reference

Korea Journal