Gottweis Kim Bionationalism

This article was downloaded by: [2007-2008-2009 Seoul National University]
On: 14 September 2009

Access details: Access Details: [subscription number 769136871]
Publisher Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House,
37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
New Genetics and Society

Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713439262
Bionationalism, stem cells, BSE, and Web 2.0 in South Korea: toward the
reconfiguration of biopolitics
Herbert Gottweis a; Byoungsoo Kim b
a
Department of Political Science, Life-Science-Governance Research Platform, University of Vienna, Vienna,
Austria b Department of Science and Technology Studies, Korea University, Seoul, South Korea
Online Publication Date: 01 September 2009
To cite this Article Gottweis, Herbert and Kim, Byoungsoo(2009)'Bionationalism, stem cells, BSE, and Web 2.0 in South Korea: toward
the reconfiguration of biopolitics',New Genetics and Society,28:3,223 — 239
To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/14636770903162437
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14636770903162437
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE
Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf
This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or
systematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or
distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.
The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents
will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses
should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss,
actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly
or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
New Genetics and Society
Vol. 28, No. 3, September 2009, 223– 239
Bionationalism, stem cells, BSE, and Web 2.0 in South

Korea: toward the reconfiguration of biopolitics
Herbert Gottweisa and Byoungsoo Kimb
a
Department of Political Science, Life-Science-Governance Research Platform,
University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria; bDepartment of Science and Technology Studies,
Downloaded By: [2007-2008-2009 Seoul National University] At: 06:45 14 September 2009
Korea University, Seoul, South Korea
We argue that at the core of contemporary biopolitics in South Korea there is a

politics of identity built around the gradual transformation of ethnic nationalism
based primarily on ethnicity, blood, and membership to a new kind of
nationalism in which ethnicity is biologically and scientifically reconfigured.
The emerging Korean bionationalism goes beyond traditional ethnic nationalism
by combining a focus on ethnicity and race with a belief in the deeply
transformative potentials of modern science, and in particular medical and life
sciences for Korean bodies and the economic future of the nation. At the same
time, there also seems to be a tendency in Korean bionationalism not only to
optimize the population through novel, technoscientific strategies, but also to
“defend” the nation against biological menace from the outside, such as
bioterrorism, and epidemics such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS),
or Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. This bionationalism with its focus on the South
Korean population combines a strong belief in using biomedical technoscience
in the optimization of the population with a politically aggressive gesture of
defending the Korean nation against “attack” from the outside. We argue that
this constellation indicates the emergence of a new biopolitical constellation,
which is also characterized by the broad utilization of Web 2.0 tools for the
purpose of political mobilization.
Keywords: bionationalism; biopolitics; Hwang Woo-Suk; South Korea; stem
cell science
Introduction
“Go away, mad cow!” shouted a protest leader from a podium in front of Seoul City
Hall in early June 2008. The crowd of 30,000 people took up the chant, pumping
their fists in the air. In Seoul and indeed all over South Korea, people took to the
streets and, holding lighted candles, protested against the import of US beef,
driven by their concern that the imported meat could transmit to the Korean
people the deadly Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a human variant of bovine spongiform

Corresponding author. Email: herbert.gottweis@univie.ac.at
ISSN 1463-6778 print/ISSN 1469-9915 online

# 2009 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/14636770903162437
http://www.informaworld.com
224 H. Gottweis and B. Kim
encephalitis (BSE) (Korean Times, 1 June 2008). This worry was based on the fact
that the Korean government just recently had signed a trade treaty with the United
States that lifted a five-year ban on US beef imports to Korea. The resulting
grassroots protests not only reflected the public’s lack of trust in the South Korean
government’s public health strategies, and a crisis in democracy. They also
pointed to the phenomenon of a strong tendency in the South Korea polity toward
biopolitical mobilizations and countermobilizations around the image of the
nation defined through race and ethnicity, and under pressure to be healed,
protected, or advanced through political intervention.
The term biopolitics is closely related to the seminal work of Michel Foucault,
but its meaning is subject to continuous renegotiation in the social sciences and
humanities. Foucault has pointed to the significant historical transition contem-
poraneous with the shaping of industrial capitalism, in which emphasis shifted
from the primacy of sovereignty, law, and coercion or force “to take life” to
the development of new forms of power constitutive of life. Such processes of
subjectification can occur in the form of the subjection of individuals to tech-
niques of domination or through subtler techniques of the self. This power of
life co-evolved in two forms: disciplining the body and regulating populations.
Whereas the former had as its object the individual, the latter addressed itself
explicitly to the “ensemble of the population” as a field of shaping and forging.
These two strategies constituted the two poles around which the power over
life was organized. The then-emerging biopolitics focused on the administration
of life, in particular on the level of populations, and was concerned with
matters of life and death – with birth, health, illness, and other processes that
optimized the life of a population (Foucault 1979, Dean 1999, p. 99). In this
model, the government and the state collected, collated, and calculated data on
the characteristics of the population (births, deaths, rates of disease, etc.), to be
complemented by those on individuals who engage in practices of “self-govern-
ment” (Rose 2001). Despite the fact that biopower was not an exclusive project
of the state but was effected through institutions such as family, health care,
and the human sciences, Foucault argued, the state nevertheless played a
central role in coordinating and steering biopolitics. At the same time, Foucault
interpreted the locus of intervention of biopolitics to be the human body.
Related to the idea of disciplining and steering human bodies was the idea of
panopticism as the essence of social control (Foucault 1977), that is, the desire
to direct behavior through the imposition of a totalizing and instrumental ration-
alism (Sewell 1998). This desire incorporated a need to know as much about
individuals as possible, a need pursued through the deployment of instruments
of measurement, enumeration, and rationalization. Such intense scrutiny not
only extracted information about the activities of individuals, but it also went a
long way toward shaping their subjectivity as individuals who saw themselves
as they are defined through surveillance (Sewell 1998). Not only were the
bodies of modern biopolitics constituted and controlled through methods of
New Genetics and Society 225
disciplining and surveillance, or guided through care of the self, these bodies were
also territorialized in the context of the modern nation-state. This government of
life operated within the space constituted by the state and was defined through the
idea of the nation, in whose name and in defense of its population modern wars
were waged.
But, as has been argued by Nikolas Rose, the ideal of the omnipresent state that
would shape, coordinate, and direct the affairs in all sectors of society today has lost
its grip on the public imagination. Accordingly, Rose, argues, in the health field
the focus has moved from “society as a whole” to “risky individuals”, individual
susceptibility (to genetic disease, for example), and, accordingly, to “risk groups”
(Rose 2001). The proactive, individualized management of the human body has
become a core element of collective and individual strategies of health maintenance
and thus of contemporary biopolitics (Rose 2007).
The idea that biopolitics no longer operates in a space defined by a territory, a
nation, or populations (Rose 2007) certainly describes crucial shifts in the unfold-
ing of contemporary biopolitics. However, it needs to be questioned to what extent
this notion of biopolitics does not conflict with the some developments that can be
observed at least in non-Western constellations (Glasner and Bharadwaj 2009,
Sleeboom-Faulkner 2009). As Susan Greenhalgh puts it:
Rose’s sweeping generalizations about “the vital politics of our century” . . . might be
appropriate for the advanced liberal societies of “the West” (though even there we
should exercise caution), but the world of the twenty-first century may no longer
find its center in the West. When we consider the rest of the world – which includes
four-fifths of the global population, the rising global powers of China and India,
with their very different histories and political rationalities and their more collectivist
mentalities, and the ongoing reorganization of power at transnational and global
levels – a different conclusion seems warranted. (Greenhalgh 2009, p. 206)
Although China offers interesting insights into a reality of biopolitics that is still
strongly determined by the overarching power of the state and its iron-handed
approach toward population politics, the picture is more ambiguous in South
Korea. Many elements of biopolitics that can be seen in China are also present
in South Korea, but the much more open character of the South Korean polity
seems to have given rise to a strongly nationalistic version of biopolitics in
which the imagining and reimagining of the nation has become a central but also
highly contested terrain. Web 2.0 tools have played a key role in this context.
We will further develop this argument first by theoretically detailing the concept
of bionationalism. We will then discuss three recent instances of bionationalist
mobilization in Korea: the case of the stem cell scientist Hwang Woo-Suk, the
political conceptualization of women in South Korea as oocyte donors, and the
2008 mass demonstrations against lifting the ban on US beef in South Korea.
These moments in current South Korean bionationalism seem to point toward
the emergence of a novel configuration of biopolitics in that country.
Bionationalism as a concept
Contemporary social studies study nationalism closely (Day and Thompson
2004).1 Claims about its demise in the age of globalization contrast with counter-
claims pointing at the rise of various forms of ethnic nationalism, or the prediction
of a revival of nationalism in the wake of the collapse of the international financial
system in 2008. Historically there have been two camps of thought on nationalism:
one side sees militarism, war, irrationalism, and ethnocentrism as resulting from
nationalism, whereas the other side sees nationalism as forwarding the positive
values of democracy, social integration, and citizenship. Brubaker characterizes
the debate as being between a civic understanding of nationalism that is seen by
opponents as liberal, universalistic, and inclusive, and an ethnic understanding

that is seen as conservative, particularistic, and exclusive (Brubaker 1999,
pp. 55–56). Although analytical value can be found in such distinctions, it is con-
structivist approaches that provide the key to understanding nationalism: that the
nation is a social, contested product reflecting shared experiences, historical
events and defeats, and with it group struggles and power relationships (Day and
Thompson 2004, Winter 2007, p. 495).
The historical context for nationalism in Korea differs from that in the West. In
Europe, nationalism developed as an ideology to integrate various ethnic groups
into one political community and to justify imperial expansion. In Korea,
however, nationalism emerged as an ideology to counter colonialism and imperial-
ism (Shin 2006, p. 229). In Korea’s transition to modernity, nationalism has been an
engine for anticolonialism and modernization, providing the ideological basis for
unification and is a source of pride in a nation that has maintained a coherent
political community within its territorial boundaries. At the same time, ethnic
nationalism has marginalized alternatives that have competed in the modernization
of Korea and has suppressed civil rights and individual freedom under the abstract
but immutable name of “nation” (Shin 2006, p. 17).
The modernization process that had begun in the nineteenth century and the
realization of Korea as a nation resulted in national identity becoming tied to eth-
nicity (Shin 2006, pp. 18 –19). Identity politics in nation-states such as England and
France operated within legal, institutional frameworks, with people becoming
members of the nation when they became citizens; in Korea and Japan, however,
people became members of the nation because of shared blood and race (Shin
2006, p. 234). In Japan, nationalism was connected with imperialism and militar-
ism, but across the Korean society, nationalism expressed the country’s anticoloni-
alism, thereby giving it positive associations that could be mobilized by different
political groups (Winter 2007, p. 495).
South Korea biopolitics after World War II offers a specific example of the
gradual transformation of ethnic nationalism from a primarily ethnic, blood, and
membership-based construct to one in which ethnicity is biologically and scienti-
fically reinterpreted. Indeed, after the Korean War (1950 – 1953), South Korean
biopolitics focused on redefining the collective project of nationalism around a

notion of “life” that should be optimized and defended. As we show below by
looking at three instances of bionationalist mobilization, the country’s emerging
bionationalism eclipsed traditional ethnic nationalism as the traditional ethnicity
marker of “blood” became increasingly displaced by genetics (Simpson 2000,
p. 3) and as other biological and scientific components, such as the stem cell or
the oocyte, became important. Such new biological markers provided the means
for defining national identity and also embedded the deeply transformative poten-
tials of modern biomedicine to be put into the service of Korean bodies and the
economic future of the nation. At the same time, the tendency in Korean bionation-
alism seemed to be not only to optimize the population through novel, technoscien-
tific strategies, but also to “defend” the nation against microbial menace from the
outside, such as bioterrorism, or epidemics of such diseases as severe acute respir-
atory syndrome (SARS) or Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. The emerging bionational-
ism with its focus on the South Korean population combined a new language
and new markers for defining the nation with elements of belief in scientific pro-
gress and the furthering of populations with a politically aggressive gesture of
defending the South Korean nation against microbial (and thus “invisible”)
“attacks” from outside the country. The new bionationalism also implied elements
of questioning and even sacrificing structures and practices of liberal democracy
and citizenship. At the same time, we argue that the emerging bionationalism in
South Korea is far from being a purely “top-down” mobilized, or quasi-authoritar-
ian phenomenon. It is instead a contested terrain for political mobilization for
different social groups, in which spontaneous street demonstrations and the utiliz-
ation of Web 2.0 style media tools have been of particular importance (Gottweis
and Kim 2010).
Healing the nation: Hwang Woo-Suk as a national hero

The South Korean veterinarian Hwang Woo-Suk is probably best known to the
world as being at the center of one of the largest scientific frauds in recent
medical history. But the Hwang case also offers fascinating insights into the
operation and practices of contemporary biopolitics in South Korea.
One of the most competitive fields of biomedical research is stem cell and
cloning, so Koreans were justifiably proud when Hwang received international
acclaim for his work in that area, in particular, for two papers published in
Science in 2004 and 2005. He became a national hero virtually overnight, which
is uncommon for a scientist in any nation. With his work hailed as a breakthrough
that would inevitably lead to significant progress in research and in industrial
application, Hwang seemed to embody the pride and hope of South Korea, and
he became the object of public fascination and adoration.
Ironically, until 2003 cloning had been a publicly contested topic in South Korea.
From about 2000, however, central policy actors in the administration of the South
Korean president, Roh Moo-Hyun, had been implementing a new strategy that would
establish the nation as a global leader in human embryonic stem cell (hESC) and
cloning research; Hwang Woo-Suk was the administration’s ticket to fame. The new
strategy implied a new legislative policy, but as it was implemented over the next
five years, it created an evolving pattern of bad governance, leading to the misappro-
priation of funds, embezzlement, violation of good ethics, and the bending of existing
and newly formed legislation. The extent of the damage has emerged only after
Hwang’s fall from grace at the end of 2005 (Gottweis and Kim 2006).
Hwang’s March 2004 Science paper had reported the first stem cell line ever
created from a cloned human embryo, a long-awaited breakthrough in cloning
research, which in the past had been successful with animals but not with
humans (Hwang 2004). His second Science paper, a year later, reported his
success creating 11 “patient-specific” stem cell lines that genetically matched
nine patients with spinal cord injury, diabetes, and an immune system disorder
(Hwang et al. 2005). With the publication of that second Science paper, which
described an astonishing step of somatic nuclear cell transfer (SNCT) toward poss-
ible medical application, Hwang’s popularity in Korea reached a new height. It was
then that stem cell research and nationalism began to merge in the public conscious-
ness; “Hwang Woo-Suk Patriotism” began to appear, and public criticism of
Hwang’s research team became untenable. Early evidence of this conflation lies
in statements by Hwang such as “I have stuck the Korean national flag into the
heights of biotechnology, America” (DongA Ilbo 2004); “Science knows no
border, but a scientist has his homeland” (Hwang, W.S. 2005); “I want to print
‘Made in Korea’ on stem cells” (DongA Ilbo 2005, Hwang, W.S. 2005). One news-
paper reported that “He was offered 10 billion dollars in research funds from one
state in America, but he rejected it” (JoongAng Ilbo 2004) – further proof to the
Korean public that Hwang was a hero to and champion of South Korea.
The Korean public saw Hwang as someone with transformative powers,
someone with the image, at least, of being capable of accomplishing what no
one before him could. He was also said to have cultivated specifically “Korean”
embryonic stem cells, which not only were something all Koreans shared, but
also something that Koreans had first cultivated for possible treatment of devastat-
ing illnesses; both these reasons were a source of national pride. Issues that had
characterized controversies over stem cell research governance in many other
countries, such as the social and ethical acceptability of cloning, gradually began
to disappear from public debate in South Korea, as did critical voices that had
played an important role in the late 1990s (Gottweis et al. 2009). South Koreans
seemed to be united behind Hwang, the government, and the project of leading
the country into a biomedical revolution that would greatly benefit and honor the
nation. As we see below, in this structuring of the public space, a biopolitical
reality seemed to take shape in which bending existing laws and violating ethical
principles were elements as much as repressing public debate and critical voices
(Gottweis and Kim 2010).
Hwang increasingly began to claim that his research would have immediate
applications for treatment of diseases such as Parkinson’s disease and spinal cord
injury, which appealed to the public. These claims reached a new height when a
new project, the World Stem Cell Hub, an international center for the storage of
stem cell lines, was opened in Seoul on 20 October 2005 by President Roh, with
many dignitaries and scientists from around the world attending. Patients were
invited to apply for experimental treatment of certain debilitating illnesses. Conse-
quently the Hub was stormed by thousands of ailing South Koreans who were
seeking relief from what was often decade-long suffering. Hwang, a poor farmer’s
son, was seen as a hero who had won national and international acclaim by healing
the wounds of a nation with the magic of the biosciences (Gottweis and Kim 2010).
But already in May 2005, the British journal Nature had published evidence of
possible ethical misconduct in the Hwang lab whereby laboratory workers donated
their own oocytes. The violations were denied not only by Hwang but also by
leading politicians and other political and business supporters (Cyranoski 2004).
One issue was that Hwang had made a point of the low figures of the voluntarily
donated eggs and claimed to have used 185 eggs from 18 women for the first
Science paper and 242 eggs from 18 women for the second Science paper
(Hwang 2004). A later report by the South Korean National Bioethics Committee
stated that from 28 November 2002 to 24 December 2005, 2221 eggs were
collected from 119 women, with monetary compensation having been paid to
only 66 women. Twenty-four women had donated eggs more than twice, including
workers from Hwang’s lab, and some donors reported serious health problems after
the donation (NBC 2006).
But at the end of 2005 – Hwang was dismissed that December – these facts were
not yet public. After the May 2005 issue of Nature had appeared, Koreans from all
walks of life rose to the defense of their “Prof. Hwang”. As the ethical misconduct
allegations expanded that spring and summer into a fraud investigation, and the
downfall of Hwang began that November, the results reverberated beyond
Hwang’s circle of scientific collaborators in various institutions: highly visible res-
ignations followed from policy advisors and politicians, such as the scientific
advisor to the South Korean president, and the chairman of the National Bioethics
Committee. The Hwang affair had evolved into a “Hwang-gate” with obvious,
far-reaching political ramifications: the biotechnology stock market crashed, and
the country entered a period of deep crisis, with people in a state of shock over
the events (Gottweis and Kim 2010).
During this downfall of Hwang, which was triggered by pressure from outside
South Korea, there were also strong voices within the country that attempted to
report the accusations to the public. When in November 2005 the TV magazine
PD Notebook first raised critical questions about Hwang, the PD Notebook team
was flooded by protest phone calls and emails. Supporters of Hwang launched a cam-
paign against the show by telephoning the show’s sponsors to demand they withdraw
their advertising, finally resulting in the complete withdrawal of PD Notebook’s
sponsors, which was unprecedented in South Korea’s broadcasting history. When the
allegations of fraud against the Hwang lab intensified, the “I Love Hwang” campaign
shifted its efforts to encouraging women to donate their eggs. The membership of an
Internet forum called “I Love Hwang Woo-Suk” swelled to as many as 110,000 sup-
porters.2 It had gone online in June 2004, after Hwang’s first paper was published in
Science, at which time there were about 15 national Hwang Woo-Suk support groups,
some of which were still active in 2006 (Kim 2006). Further related Internet sites
emerged one after another.
Still, on 24 November 2005, the Ministry of Health and Welfare announced that
there was no problem in the process of egg supply and that the affair was merely the
result of a “cultural gap between the West and East”. Major mass media in South
Korea supported the argument that in the discussion about Hwang Woo-Suk the
national interest must prevail. In a press conference on 23 December 2005, when
Hwang resigned from the position of professor at Seoul National University, he
said “I declare once again that patient-specific stem cell technology is the techno-
logy of Korea” (Pressian 2005).
In early February 2006, a man who supported Hwang immolated himself. Before
pouring inflammable liquid over his body, he handed out leaflets that explained he
would burn himself to death in order “to unveil the truth regarding why Professor
Hwang’s stem cell research was suspended, to have his research resume, and to
punish the conspiring groups”. The middle-aged truck driver died (Chosun Ilbo
2006), exemplifying perhaps the most extreme Hwang supporter.
Hwang Woo-Suk supporters continued to exchange information via Web 2.0
vehicles on the Internet, and an Internet forum provided updates on Hwang’s situ-
ations, posted criticisms of anti-Hwang groups, and discussed demonstration plans.
Rallies also continued, with the 1 March 2006 rally being the largest to show
support for Hwang in Seoul. According to Hwang supporters, 20,000 to 30,000
people gathered in the rally (4000 according to the police). The messages on their
pickets and stickers expressed their resolute faith in Hwang and their anger at their
government: “Dr Hwang, you are the true scientist of the Republic of Korea”;
“Dr Hwang, you are the victim of conspiracy”; “The government should take
responsibility for draining the national wealth over stem cell”; “If you fail to
protect our patent, prosecutors, you are traitors as well” (Kim 2007). In addition,
supporters held seminars and led various popular campaigns that attempted to
open attendance at Hwang Woo-Suk’s trial, to revise the Bioethics and Biosafety
Act, and to force a resumption of research by popular petition.3
Even years after the Hwang affair had occurred, ending with the 2005 dismissal of
Hwang from all of his university and other official positions, support for Dr Hwang
among Koreans showed no sign of abating. According to a public opinion poll
released on 19 July 2008, as many as 88.4% of the respondents still believed that
Hwang should be given another chance. To the question as to why they would
support his resuming research, 57.7% answered that Hwang is an indispensable
scientist in stem cell research, which would bring enormous wealth to the nation
(I want to know it 2008). In a survey conducted by a newspaper in January 2007,

76.8% of the respondents thought that Hwang deserved a second chance (JoongAng
Ilbo 2008). Although it is not possible here to explore fully the complicated details of
the Hwang affair in South Korea, the case nevertheless represents a fascinating form
of biopolitics that, at least temporarily, dramatically reconfigured the political order.
The identification of the South Korean nation with Hwang as a hero, the mobilization
of stem cell research as something that could divide the nation between patriots and
those who are not, and the expectation of advancing South Korean interests and
healing the South Korean people as a whole had created an exceptional constellation.
Fraud, violations of standards and laws, and dubious money transfers were as much
part of this constellation as the state’s enthusiastic support of Hwang and the margin-
alization of critics. Although this case did not elude opposition within the country,
the critical voices were effectively silenced as long as the pressure from outside
South Korea had not become too strong to ignore. Nevertheless, as much as the
South Korean state had adopted its role in this bionationalist drama, it was also
played out in a decentralized manner with large numbers of individual citizens
uniting through Web 2.0 media and in city streets to demonstrate their support for
Professor Hwang. Thus, while the emerging biopolitical field was heavily character-
ized by top-down mobilization, it certainly also had a spontaneous, “uncontrolled”
dimension with “bionationalistic” citizens positioning themselves as devoted
followers of Professor Hwang, fighting his case – and the case of Korea – long
after the government had withdrawn its support for this project.
Breeding the nation

As shown in the previous section, the question of access to female oocytes had
played a key role in the Hwang affair. Securing the availability of embryos from
fertility clinics and of oocytes was essential for Hwang’s research. But the practices
of oocyte procurement by Hwang’s lab also threw a peculiar light on the politics of
reproduction in South Korea. From 1985, when the first test-tube baby was born in
South Korea, to 2006, when the Bioethics and Biosafety Act took effect, fertility
clinics in South Korea had not been under binding regulations. As a result,
doctors or hospitals developed a system of self-regulating for the procurement
and storage of unused embryos in in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinics (Kim 2005).
This laissez-faire approach toward reproductive medicine in South Korea must
be placed in the context of post-World War II trends in population politics.
The Hwang case and its bionationalistic ramifications point to the special recent
history of population politics in South Korea. Since World War II, women in South
Korea had been a target of population politics and were subjected to policies
designed in the name of national interest. In the early 1960s South Korea was suf-
fering from severe economic deprivation due to destruction from the Korean War
and the division of the nation. As a result of in-migration of residents from North
Korea and the postwar baby boom, the South Korean population was growing at
an annual rate of 3%. The postwar government, which had been swept into power by
a military coup, followed the then-current assumption that population increase hin-
dered economic development, so the government consequently enforced strict birth
control. Family planning policies started in 1961 and continued until the late 1980s.
The government initially focused on education, promotion, and distributing contra-
ceptives. Later, it expanded the policy, easing legal restrictions on abortions and
facilitating the sterilization of women. Still later modifications resulted in granting
more benefits to those who followed the state’s guidelines and disadvantaging those
who had more children (Lee 1989). Regional quotas were applied as part of the
national family planning policy. Starting from 1962, family planning agents were
dispatched to public health centers across the nation. There were cases of women
undergoing compulsory sterilizations in order to meet the local quota. The govern-
ment established mothers’ associations for family planning in 16,823 villages; such
associations were the primary distribution medium for contraceptives. Through such
efforts, motherhood was subjected to the nation’s policy and used as a tool for popu-
lation control (Hwang, J. 2005).
At the same time, modernization quickly moved childbirth into the medical realm.
South Korean biopolitics was focused not only on meeting national birthrate goals,
but also on optimizing the population along cultural preferences. In 1970, only 17.6%
of babies were born in hospitals; this figure had increased to 98.1% in 1991. The
advancement of technology related to childbirth was followed by the introduction
of IVF and the expansion of fertility clinics. Family succession based on bloodline
and the cultural preference for boys played a major role in the expansion of fertility
clinics in Korea (Cho 2006). As of 31 January 2006, 122 IVF clinics, 44 embryo
research institutes, and 6 somatic cell cloning research institutes were registered
with the Ministry of Welfare. As of 2006, a total of 93,921 human embryos were
stored in 98 IVF institutes in South Korea. Four of the institutes have derived
stem cell lines from surplus embryos. Human embryonic stem cells (hESC)
created by the four institutes reportedly number 49 (MHW 2006).
It is in this context that the developments around Hwang Woo-Suk’s project must
be understood. When in 2005 questions were raised by the TV magazine PD Note-
book over the issue of how oocytes were supplied, a campaign for egg donation
began to emerge. Coincidentally, the “Egg Donation Foundation for research and
treatment” was officially launched on the morning of the PD Notebook broadcast.
The chair of the foundation said that she realized the need for egg donation
when she visited Hwang’s laboratory with her disabled husband the year before.
She emphasized the need for an egg donation campaign by saying, “Stem cell
research must continue to give hope for the patients who suffer from rare or fatal
disease. Noble contribution by us, women, is absolutely critical to the research”
(Maeil Business Newspaper 2005).
On 6 December 2005, a ceremony was held during which women declared their
intention to donate oocytes for Hwang’s stem cell research. The event, which started
with the singing of the national anthem, was designed from start to finish to tap into
South Koreans’ nationalistic pride for Dr Hwang and to celebrate reaching 1000
pledged donors. The 200 participants left behind bouquets of the national flower
and notes of encouragement for Dr Hwang. They also adorned the 700-meter path
from the main gate of Veterinarian College to his laboratory with azalea flowers.
A man who participated in the ceremony said that his wife and all three daughters
would donate eggs (Hankook Ilbo 2005). In the end, egg donation pledges were
secured from 114 women to the Egg Donation Foundation and from 1500 women
to I Love Hwang. About the phenomenon, one renowned scientist said that she
was “deeply moved by the news that 1000 women pledged to donate their eggs”.
She added that “this demonstrates the latent energy of Korean women who never
failed to step forward in times of difficulty” (OhmyNews 2006).

Oocyte donation occurs across the world, not only in South Korea (Waldby
2008). However, the rush of many women from all over South Korea – and
their laudation by the mass media – to donate their eggs for Hwang’s research
and to further the national interest constitutes a unique incidence of women
being mobilized as part of a large-scale politics of life. It reflects a biopolitical
order in which those who voluntarily sacrificed one’s body in the national interest
are the same people who historically had been key instruments for South Korean
bionationalism. In that sense, belonging to the Korean nation was defined not
just through ethnicity but also through physical sacrifice in the service of scientific
progress and national benefit. At the same time, just as was the case in the defense
of Hwang against fraud accusations, the mobilization was hardly a centralized, top-
down led process, but mainly the result of grassroots networking using Web 2.0
instruments.4 Again, the Internet and its many related new media tools had
proven to be crucial in configuring biopolitics in South Korea by creating spaces
and tools for political expression and mobilization.
Defending the nation against BSE

In Discipline and punish Foucault points to the origins of modern disciplinary
society in establishing a system of quarantine to cope with the plague. Throughout
modern history, the plague demanded discipline as a proper response (Foucault
1977, pp. 251 –253). The language of the “microbiological invasion” in the form
of infectious disease introduced from without, and the idea of the need of a response
remained in the public and political imagination for centuries, notably in nineteenth-
century immigration controls up to the post-2001 anthrax scare (Sarasin 2004).
The biopolitics of responding to a disease threat from the outside erupted in
South Korea in late spring of 2008 around bovine spongiform encephalitis. BSE
is a progressive neurological disorder in cattle that results from infection by an
unusual transmissible agent called a prion. Prions are infectious agents comprised
of a misfolded protein. The BSE epidemic originated in the United Kingdom,
peaking there in January 1993. It developed into a major public health scare
when strong epidemiologic and laboratory evidence accumulated for a causal
association between a new human prion disease called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob

disease (vCJD), which was first reported in the United Kingdom in 1996 (CDC
2009). To date there have been three vCJD cases identified in the United States,
the first in 2003. That same year, South Korea, the third largest importer of US
beef, banned imports of US beef. Politically, one of the most fundamental
changes that was introduced by the BSE scare was the break with a sectorized
approach to food safety. The interconnection between the domains of “agriculture”
and “public health” had gained new visibility and shaken the grounds of the exist-
ing “biopolitical” ordering of society (Loeber and Hajer 2006).
When on 18 April 2008 the South Korean government agreed to resume the import
of US beef, as noted at the beginning of this article a growing protest movement

demanded that the government overturn its decision. The prospect of a possible
epidemic following the import of infected meat from the United States resulted in
a mass grassroots mobilization that demanded strict state action to eliminate infection
risks. Initially 10,000 people took to the streets in Seoul and other South Korean
cities holdings signs that read “Bush, don’t impose mad cow on Koreans”;
“We support candlelight vigils at home to press for a renegotiation of the beef
import deal”; “Healthy people, healthy alliance”; and “President Lee Myung-bak
drowns democracy” (Korean Times, 10 June 2008). What had sparked the candle-
light demonstrations was a PD Notebook broadcast on 27 April 2008, “Urgent
report: is US beef really safe from mad cow disease (BSE)?” Two days later it
reported that there was a high chance that a US resident who died on 9 April from
neurodegenerative disease symptoms had variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
(vCJD), the possible human form of BSE, more commonly known as mad cow
disease. Quickly taken up by the mass media were statements from scientists who
argued that Koreans are genetically more susceptible to the deadly animal disease.5
On the night of 2 May 2008, members of an Internet forum and others held the first
candlelight vigil in Seoul, which they repeated on successive evenings. The major
demand of the citizen was renegotiation of the new trade agreement. The
government announced the import of US beef on 29 May, after which the Korean
government rejected the citizens’ demand more forcefully, dispersing protestors by
force and taking many people to police stations. The topic for candlelight movement
expanded into a broader critique of neo-liberalistic policies of Lee’s administration
such as the privatization of medical service, liberalization of education system,
reduction of public service, and control of media and Internet. The BSE controversy
was also broadly interpreted as a “test” for South Korean democracy, in particular in
face of the more and more forceful crackdowns on the street protests.
On 10 June, a million citizens across the nation participated in candlelight
demonstrations, levying accusations against the government and pressing for rene-
gotiation of the free trade agreement. The report touched off public anger over
the imports of US beef, leading to additional candlelight protests over the next
40 days. Meanwhile, the protests forced President Lee Myung-bak to replace six
of his nine senior presidential aides on 20 June, hoping that the reshuffle would
restore confidence in his four-month-old government. Although the US Centers for

Disease Control announced on 5 May that the woman thought to be the first US
victim of vCJD in fact did not die of the disease, a political dynamic had already
been set in motion in which the defense of the nation from microbiological
attack from without – notably from the simultaneously loved and hated United
States of America – moved into the foreground of political controversy.
One of the notable characteristics of the demonstrations was that teenage
students, especially young women, participated from the very start. On 3 May
2008, about 70% of the participants were middle or high school students.
Whereas most of the country’s earlier demonstrations had mainly been organized
by nongovernmental or liberal organizations, thereafter leading to a broadening

of protesters, with the BSE case spontaneous grassroots protests started the demon-
strations and were joined only later by civil organizations.
This spontaneous mode of protest was probably related to a highly efficient pre-
vious mobilization through Web 2.0 instruments. Just as in the Hwang case and in
the oocyte donation movement, the BSE protest movement also used the Internet,
utilizing the new media tools to an even greater extent. Digital copies of TV broad-
casts – such as PD Notebook – posted by individuals and circulated widely on the
Internet added considerably to the political dynamics. The young students who
started the demonstrations exchanged information via the Internet or mobile
phone text messaging. While the major media was sidelining this issue, BSE and
rally status information was quickly shared through individual blogs or Internet
debate sites. The candlelight demonstrations were broadcast in real time over the
Internet. Violent crackdowns by the police were documented by digital devices
and spread quickly over the Internet. One Internet portal site even campaigned to
impeach the president, collecting a million signatories in 29 days.
The South Korean BSE mass demonstrations point toward another important
feature of contemporary bionationalism in the country. Biopolitical intervention
in South Korea is not just reduced to optimizing the population, but also seems
to operate in a line of defense against “microbial attack” from outside the
country, with BSE just one expression of this outside challenge next to SARS or
the bioterrorism scare. As we have already seen, the political mobilization against
US beef exports went far beyond a forceful articulation of concerns about a
public health challenge and also articulated the specific genetic vulnerability of
Koreans toward BSE exposure. At the same time, the “defense” of the health and
integrity of the South Korean population hardly was left to the agencies of the
state, but, on the contrary, it has been adopted by a loosely organized grassroots
movement pioneering Web 2.0 tools in political mobilization and attacking the
government for sacrificing the health of the population in the interest of neoliberal
trade liberalization. While the BSE scare had led to political response and reorgan-
izations in many countries, the spontaneous, Web 2.0-led forms of mass protest in
defense of claimed national (genetic) interest were unique to South Korea and point
to the specifics of bionationalist articulation in that country.
Bionationalism in South Korea: ambiguities and prospects

As this paper attempts to show, the emerging picture of contemporary biopolitics in
South Korea hardly seems to conform with some of the well-established, Western
notions of today’s politics of life. While we do not dispute that certainly also
in South Korea the proactive, individualized (self-) management of the human
body has become a feature of biopolitics – there is, for example, no question that
reproductive choices have become highly individualized in South Korea – it
seems that “the nation” as well as the population remain key themes in South
Korean biopolitical mobilization. Biopolitics in South Korea is a contested
terrain, and the emerging patterns of contestation show centralized agencies such
as the state in addition to decentralized actors such as citizen groups communicating

via new media/Web 2.0. tools like blogs, YouTube, and various Internet sites in a
loosely structured process of defining and redefining the South Korean nation. Dis-
ciplining and self-disciplining, sacrificing and defending on a collective remain
important elements of biopolitics. Optimizing the population through biomedical
means seems to be as much a theme as is defending the nation against biological
menace from without. At the same time, traditional markers of national identity
such as blood seem to be in a process of being replaced by biomedically reconfigured
markers, such as stem cells, oocytes, or collective, genetic susceptibility. Neither
stem cell research and the hero status of certain prominent scientists, nor BSE as a
public menace, nor shifting practices of reproductive medicine is exclusive to the
South Korean experience. But what stands out in the South Korean context is
how these topics have been configured as bionationalistic projects in the larger con-
texts of a politics of population and how new, scientifically led markers of national
identity have emerged. The extent to which Web 2.0. tools have been used in such
nationalist mobilizations is remarkable, not unlike what was observed in postelec-
tion Iran in June 2009. While in Western countries in the biopolitical field Web
2.0 tools play an increasingly important role – for example in patient organizations
or expressions of “consumer genomics” such as DeCODEme and 23andme
(Sunstein 2007, Prainsack et al. 2008) – in South Korea the new media have
been extensively used in the context of bionationalistic mobilization.
In the case of Hwang Woo-Suk, this scientist’s alleged success in a core field of
regenerative medicine and its possible implications for therapeutic use were merged
with euphoric expectations of immediate mass healing through stem cell science,
and a hero cult around a charismatic scientist. The decisions by hundreds of women
to donate oocytes for research came to be reframed as a collective sacrifice for the
benefit of the nation, quite apart from concerns of reproductive medicine itself. In
the BSE case, a trade and public health policy controversy quickly morphed into a
collective concern about collective as well as genetic vulnerability to BSE, and the
selling-out of national health to US interests. What stands out in the BSE case is
that bionationalistic mobilization apparently does not have to be understood as a con-
tradiction to democratic struggle. While in the Hwang case bionationalist mobilization
largely operated top-down, the BSE controversy has been phrased by the protester as a
symbolic battle over the freedom of speech and democratic rights. But there can be no
question that this democratic battle operated in the name of South Korean citizens
mobilizing in the streets a defense against a microbial attack on Korea from the
outside, and thus drawing a line between South Korean patriots and those who
betray them.
Although the state has played an important role in the shaping of Korean
bionationalism, the emerging picture remains ambiguous: the “Hwang project”
was consistent with a large-scale political-industrial mobilization in biotechnology
and reproductive politics, which had been an important state project since the
Korean War. But the various candlelight demonstrations in support of Hwang,

the blogs, and the oocyte-donating women were neither initiated nor controlled
by the government. And, as pointed out, the grassroots political mobilization
against US beef imports simply took the South Korean political leadership by sur-
prise. It seems that in South Korea a new space of biopolitics has opened up with
the population as the key site of struggle, new markers of shared identity redefining
the imagination of the nation, and new forms of mass protest and Web 2.0-based
mobilization leading to a new political dynamic. It should not be surprising to
see similar processes emerge in other countries in Asia and elsewhere, in particular
where nationalism is strong and thus a potential site for biopolitical struggles.
Notes
1. For the following sections see also Gottweis and Kim (2010).
2. There were four Hwang support groups before the PD Notebook broadcast in November, after
which 11 additional groups were established. For I Love Hwang Woo-Suk, the number of
members rose from 10,000 before the broadcast to a high of 110,000 after the broadcast.
3. According to Voice of a Nation, an online newspaper that supports Hwang Woo-Suk, as of
January 2008, 647,111 people signed the petition to allow Hwang to resume research; their
goal is a million signatures.
4. Koreans are very active in Internet-based participation and sharing. Of the respondents, 91.6%
have either participated in or shared, through one or more means, ranging from operation of a
forum (77.85), blog, or mini web page (52.4%) to writing comments (45.6%), to copying and
pasting (62.5%), or downloading of data, and to creating user-created content (UCC, a staple
of Web 2.0) (43.2%) (NIDA 2006).
5. Following a newspaper report, according to a Korean researcher, the sequence of prion protein
gene (PRNP) of 124 vCJD patients in the UK in 2004 all had Methionine-Methionine
homozygosity at codon 129. Normally, British have a 50% chance of Metionine-Valine
heterozygosity and a 10% chance of Valine-Valine homozygosity. Kim Young-Sun,
the director of the Korea CJD Diagnostic Center, investigated PRNP of 529 normal Koreans
without human BSE. According to Jeong et al. 2004, 94.33% of Koreans have Met-Met,
5.48% have Met-Val, and 0.19% have Val-Val (Jeong et al. 2004). The researchers analyzed
PRNP of 150 patients with sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease similar to vCJD, resulting in an
all Met-Met homozygosity at codon 129 as well (Jeong et al. 2005). Kim explained: “Only
40% of populations have Met-Met in US or UK. Therefore, it implies that Korean[s] have
higher possibility to get human vBSE compared to American and British” (DongA Ilbo 2007).
References
Brubaker, R., 1999. The Manichaean myth: rethinking the division between “ethnic” and “civilian”
nationalism. In: H.P. Kriesi, et al., eds. Nation and national identity: the European experience
in perspective. Zürich: Verlag Rueggert, 50–71.
CDC (Centers for Disease Control), 2009. BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad
cow disease) [online], Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/bse/ [Accessed
16 February 2009].
Cho, J., 2006. Egg: politics structured around the vision of biotechnology and the touch of women’s
embodied experience. Journal of Korean Women’s Studies, 22 (2), 5–40.
Chosun, Ilbo, 2006. “Let Dr Hwang Woo-Suk continue his research” – a man who set himself ablaze
to death. Chosun Ilbo, 5 February.
Cyranoski, D., 2004. Korea’s stem-cell stars dogged by suspicion of ethical breach. Nature, 429, 3.
Day, G. and Thompson, A., 2004. Theorizing nationalism. Houndsmills: Palgrave.
Dean, M., 1999. Governmentality: power and rule in modern society. London: Sage.
DongA, Ilbo, 2004. A blueprint of human cloning, Woo-Suk Hwang stuck the Korean national flag
into the heights of biotechnology, America. DongA Ilbo, 18 February.
DongA, Ilbo, 2005. Hwang Woo-Suk, I want to print “made in Korea” on stem cells. DongA Ilbo, 9 June.
DongA, Ilbo, 2007. A virulent disease – Koreans vulnerable to get human BSE compared to Amer-
ican and British. DongA Ilbo, 23 March.
Foucault, M., 1977. Discipline and punish: the birth of the prison. London: Allen Lane.
Foucault, M., 1979. The history of sexuality. Vol. 1: An introduction. London: Allen Lane.
Glasner, P. and Bharadwaj, A., 2009. Local cells, global science: the rise of embryonic stem cell
research in India. London: Routledge.
Gottweis, H. and Kim, B.S., 2006. Explaining Hwang-gate: biotechnology governance in South
Korea, Paper presented at the Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S) Annual Meeting,
1–5 November, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Gottweis, H. and Kim, B.S., 2010. Explaining Hwang-gate: South Korean identity politics between
bio-nationalism and globalization. Science, Technology, and Human Values (in press).
Gottweis, H., Salter, B., and Waldby, C., 2009. The global politics of human embryonic stem cell
science: regenerative medicine in transition. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Greenhalgh, S., 2009. The Chinese biopolitical: facing the twenty-first century. New Genetics and
Society, 28, 223–239.
Hankook, Ilbo, 2005. Ceremony of delivering egg donation pledges of 1,000 women. Hankook Ilbo,
10 December.
Hwang, J., 2005. Low fertility and gender politics of motherhood in Korea. Journal of Korean
Women’s Studies, 21 (3), 99–132.
Hwang, W.S., 2005. Biotechnology is our future. Speech given to the forum of Kwanhun Club,
7 June, Seoul, Korea.
Hwang, W.S., 2004. Evidence of a pluripotent human embryonic stem cell line derived from a cloned
blastocyst. Science, 303, 1669–1674.
Hwang, W.S., et al., 2005. Patient-specific embryonic stem cells derived from human SCNT blasto-
cysts. Science, 308, 1777–1783.
I want to know it, 2008. Debate on Hwang’s comeback: can he clone the legend?, TV, SBS, 19 July.
Jeong, B., et al., 2004. Polymorphisms of the prion protein gene (PRNP) in a Korean population.
Journal of Human Genetics, 49, 319–324.
Jeong, B., et al., 2005. Association of sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease with homozygous geno-
types at PRNP codons 129 and 219 in the Korean population. Neurogenetics, 6, 229–232.
JoongAng, Ilbo, 2004. Hwang, Woo-Suk, he didn’t go to America in spite of 10-billion-dollar tempta-
tion. JoongAng Ilbo.
JoongAng, Ilbo, 2008. 88.4% of the public is for Hwang’s resuming research. JoongAng Ilbo, 21 July.
Kim, B.S., 2005. Social contexts of success in human embryo cloning: “chopsticks culture”? Human,
2, 6–8.
Kim, H.S., 2006. Hwang affair and irrational collectivism. Speech given to the Korea Social Forum,
23 March. Seoul, South Korea.
Kim, J., 2007. Making sense of fervent Hwang Woo Suk supporters. Korean Journal of Sociology, 41 (6),
75–111.
Lee, M., 1989. A feminist analysis of the state policy on birth control. Women’s Studies Review, 6,
49–78.
Loeber, A. and Hajer, M., 2006. Learning after the event: assessing the institutional role of civic
participation after food scandals and food scares, Final Report WP 5. PAGANINI Project, manu-
script, Amsterdam.
Maeil Business Newspaper, 2005. Opening the webpage of egg donation foundation. Maeil Business
Newspaper, 24 December.
MHW (Ministry of Health Welfare), 2006. Survey on the status of human embryo repository and
supply. Seoul: Ministry of Health and Welfare.
NBC (National Bioethics Committee), 2006. Final report on ethical issues of Professor Hwang’s
research. Seoul: National Bioethics Committee.
NIDA (National Internet Development Agency of Korea), 2006. Current status of Internet utilization
by Netizens. Seoul: NIDA.
OhmyNews, 2006. Human egg or human embryo – is it nothing more than research material?
OhmyNews, 6 December.
PD Notebook, 2005. Suspicion on egg donation of Woo Suk Hwang, TV, MBC, 22 November.
PD Notebook, 2008. Urgent report: is US beef really safe from mad cow disease (BSE)?, TV, MBC,
27 April.
Prainsack, B., et al., 2008. Misdirected precaution. Nature, 456, 34–35.
Pressian, 2005. Hwang Woo-Suk, I’m resigning from the position of professor. Pressian, 23
November.
Rose, N., 2001. The politics of life itself. Theory, Culture, and Society, 18, 1–30.
Rose, N., 2007. The politics of life itself: biomedicine, power, and subjectivity in the twenty-first
century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Sarasin, P., 2004. Anthrax. Bioterror als phantasma. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Sewell, G., 1998. The discipline of teams: the control of team-based industrial work through elec-
tronic and peer surveillance. Administrative Science Quarterly, Special issue: critical perspec-
tives on organizational control, 43, 397 –428.
Shin, G.W., 2006. Ethnic nationalism in Korea: genealogy, politics, and legacy. Palo Alto, CA:
Stanford University Press.
Simpson, B., 2000. Imagined genetic communities: ethnicity and essentialism in the twenty-first
century. Anthropology Today, 16, 3–6.
Sleeboom-Faulkner, M., ed., 2009. Human genetic biobanks in Asia: politics of trust and scientific
advancement. London: Routledge.
Sunstein, C.R., 2007. Republic 2.0. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Waldby, C., 2008. Oocyte markets: women’s reproductive labor in embryonic stem cell research.
New Genetics and Society, 27 (1), 19–31.
Winter, E., 2007. How does the nation become pluralist? Ethnicities, 7, 483–515.

Gottweis Kim Bionationalism

Загружено:

Сведения о документе

Исходное описание:

Оригинальное название

Авторское право

Доступные форматы

Поделиться этим документом

Поделиться или встроить документ

Параметры публикации

Этот документ был вам полезен?

Это неприемлемый материал?

Авторское право:

Доступные форматы

Gottweis Kim Bionationalism

Загружено:

Авторское право:

Доступные форматы

This article was downloaded by: [2007-2008-2009 Seoul National University]

On: 14 September 2009

New Genetics and Society

Online Publication Date: 01 September 2009

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf

Bionationalism, stem cells, BSE, and Web 2.0 in South

Korea University, Seoul, South Korea

We argue that at the core of contemporary biopolitics in South Korea there is a

ISSN 1463-6778 print/ISSN 1469-9915 online

opponents as liberal, universalistic, and inclusive, and an ethnic understanding

biopolitics focused on redeﬁning the collective project of nationalism around a

Healing the nation: Hwang Woo-Suk as a national hero

(I want to know it 2008). In a survey conducted by a newspaper in January 2007,

Breeding the nation

failed to step forward in times of difﬁculty” (OhmyNews 2006).

Defending the nation against BSE

association between a new human prion disease called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob

of US beef, as noted at the beginning of this article a growing protest movement

restore conﬁdence in his four-month-old government. Although the US Centers for

by nongovernmental or liberal organizations, thereafter leading to a broadening

Bionationalism in South Korea: ambiguities and prospects

as the state in addition to decentralized actors such as citizen groups communicating

Korean War. But the various candlelight demonstrations in support of Hwang,

Вам также может понравиться