참을 수 있는 공동체의 ‘가벼움’: 페미니즘 책모임 ‘위페’의 사회적 관계에 관한 소고 = A Bearable ‘Lightness’ of Community: An Ethnographic Study on Social Relationships at a Feminist Reading Club WeFe

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Since feminism was “rebooted” in South Korea in mid-2010s, feminism has also become a t rend in Korean publishing markets. Not only have the books that cover topics related to feminism increased both qualitatively and quantitatively, it is also true that the way to read them has changed. Internet and social media allowed people who are eager to learn feminism and link to one another to make relations beyond online networks, which has led toward literacy practices becoming more collective. In this study I articulate the nature of social relationships constructed among young female feminists in Korea by analyzing their online and in-person interactions. To do so, I bring the concept of “light” community, referring to the social groups building flexible but temporarily intense relationships, which is different from the “thick” communities that are constructed based on substantial identities such as gender, race, or religion. With the concept of lightness, this study demonstrates that the members of the club remain neither intimate nor anonymous but light, in spite of a strong ideological grounding in feminism. This ethnographic case study of collective literacy practices of reading feminist books together illustrates the meaning and limits of feminist solidarity in contemporary South Korea.