Skip to main content

Hyunji Kwon

Seoul National University · Social Sciences

About the Lab

Professor Hyunji Kwon's research lab focuses on labor market inequalities, particularly gendered and racialized precarity in service and global production networks. The lab investigates how organizational structures, corporate policies, and global value chains perpetuate structural inequities, with a strong emphasis on the experiences of women and marginalized workers. It also explores the role of visual and embodied methodologies—such as body mapping and testimonial art—in witnessing and challenging systemic violence and colonial legacies.

gendered laborglobal value chainspostcolonial aestheticslabor precarityembodied research

Research Overview

Papers
99
Total Citations
414
Papers (5y)
31
Primary Field
Social Sciences

Research Output Trend

Figures are computed from collected data and may differ slightly.

Publications per year (5y)
31total
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026
Citations per year (5y)
38total
20222023202420252026

Selected Papers

15
1
Article|21 citations·2013
It’s all in the mix: Determinants and consequences of workforce blending in call centres
Hyunji Kwon, Danielle Van Jaarsveld
SJR Q1Human Relations

Supplementing the full-time permanent workforce with part-time staff is a widespread practice among firms. To better understand this dynamic, we evaluate how work organization choices influence the degree of part-time use by analysing North American survey data from call centre establishments. We also evaluate the effect of part-time use on the voluntary turnover behaviour of the full-time permanent workforce. For example, firms with greater reliance on a high involvement approach to work organi

General Health ProfessionsHealth Professions
2
Article|19 citations·2015
저임금 서비스 노동시장의 젠더 불평등
권현지, 김영미, 권혜원

이 연구는 서비스경제화의 과정에서 확대되고 있는 여성의 일자리가 주로 저임금부문에 집중되어 불평등한 상태로 유지·강화되는 현재의 노동시장 현상에 주목하고 이를 이해해 보려는 한 시도다. 견고하게 지속되고 있는 서비스 경제하 여성노동의 저임금화와 불평등의 유지를 틸리(C. Tilly)의 장기지속 불평등이라는 개념틀을 차용해 이해해 보려고 하였다. 즉, 노동조직내부의 경계와 사회규범이 배태된 사회적 범주의 차이가 결합되어 시장 합리성의 논리로는 설명되기 어려운 젠더 불평등이 견고하게 유지되는 과정을 설명하였다. 또 이러한 불평등을 생성하고 유지시키는 주요 행위자로 기업에 주목하고, 기업 구조와 정책이 이 과정에 어떻게 작용하는지를 논의하였다. 구체적으로, (1) 기업 내 성분절적 고용관리 정책, (2) 기업 간 전근대적 위계 분업 관계, (3) 신분제적 고객관계를 강화하는 대고객서비스 전략이 어떻게 사회적 위계로서의 젠더 범주와 결합되고 상호작용함으로써 여성서비스노동자의 불평등한 노동경

3
Article|19 citations·2020
Graphic Novels: Exploring Visual Culture and Multimodal Literacy in Preservice Art Teacher Education
Hyunji Kwon
SJR Q1Art Education
Visual Arts and Performing ArtsArts and Humanities
4
Article|17 citations·2022
Virtual Reality: Immersive and Situated Art Education With 360-Degree Cameras, and Augmented and Virtual Reality Technology
Hyunji Kwon, Kenneth Morrill
SJR Q1Art Education
Human-Computer InteractionComputer Science
5
Article|7 citations·2021
Toward a Bipolar Apparel GVC? From the Perspective of First-Tier Suppliers*
Hyunji Kwon, Jinsun Bae, Joonkoo Lee, Sun Wook Chung
Strategy and ManagementBusiness, Management and Accounting
6
Article|7 citations·2021
South Korean first‐tier suppliers in apparel global value chains: Upgrading and labour implications in the Asian context
Hyunji Kwon, Sun Wook Chung, Joonkoo Lee
SJR Q2International Labour Review

Abstract This article traces the historical development of apparel suppliers in the Republic of Korea, particularly the rise of first‐tier suppliers (FTSs). Using the cases of two leading FTSs, the authors examine how they expanded their international presence, especially in Asia, to become large multinationals. Particular attention is paid to the development of these FTSs during the period following the global financial crisis of the late 2000s. This article investigates whether, having rapidly

Strategy and ManagementBusiness, Management and Accounting
7
Article|5 citations·2022
Body mapping as embodiment and witnessing and its implications for art education
Hyunji Kwon
SJR Q1International Journal of Education through Art

Body mapping refers to the process of representing a person’s lived experience and sociocultural contexts by creating a visualization of the person’s body, with accompanying texts and symbols. Despite the history of disembodiment in the western context, the wide use of body mapping as a visual methodology in various fields attests to the potential of body mapping in promoting embodiment and witnessing. By analysing three body maps that were created at three distinct teaching sites in community-b

Visual Arts and Performing ArtsArts and Humanities
8
Article|4 citations·2017
The Paintings of Korean Comfort Woman Duk-kyung Kang: Postcolonial and Decolonial Aesthetics for Colonized Bodies
Hyunji Kwon
SJR Q2Feminist Studies

This essay addresses the largely unrecognized art of a former comfort woman, Duk-kyung Kang (1929–1997). Comfort women were forced sexual slaves for the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second World War. By analyzing how both postcolonial and decolonial aesthetics are embodied in her paintings, the potential of her art to challenge colonialism becomes pronounced.

Cultural StudiesSocial Sciences
9
Article|4 citations·2017
The Paintings of Korean Comfort Woman Duk-kyung Kang: Postcolonial and Decolonial Aesthetics for Colonized Bodies
Hyunji Kwon
SJR Q2Feminist Studies

This essay addresses the largely unrecognized art of a former comfort woman, Duk-kyung Kang (1929–1997). Comfort women were forced sexual slaves for the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second World War. By analyzing how both postcolonial and decolonial aesthetics are embodied in her paintings, the potential of her art to challenge colonialism becomes pronounced.

Cultural StudiesSocial Sciences
10
Article|3 citations·2017
PERFORMING WITNESSING: ART, SEXUAL TRAUMA, AND FEMINIST PEDAGOGY
Hyunji Kwon
Gender StudiesSocial Sciences
11
Article|3 citations·2021
Remembering Seonjeong Yi Lebrun: Mourning with narratives of care
Hyunji Kwon
SJR Q1International Journal of Education through Art

It is hard to coherently narrate traumatic memories as they are intensely emotional and fragmented. I created this narrative inquiry in the hope of enacting care and performing mourning for the unexpected death of Seonjeong Yi Lebrun (1983–2017). Seonjeong was a Korean-born art education researcher in Canada whose work exemplified how artistic approaches to narrative evoke empathy and connectivity. Her research spanned arts-based self-study to participatory action research about comfort women (K

Sociology and Political ScienceSocial Sciences
12
Article|3 citations·2025
Trauma and Art Pedagogy: Witnessing Through Embodied, Affective, and Memory Work by Women Living in Transitional Homes
Hyunji Kwon
SJR Q1Studies in Art EducationOA

Informed by critical trauma theory and by implementing modified principles of trauma-informed care approaches, I conducted art pedagogical practices for women in transitional homes who may have experienced trauma. These artistic practices that possibly enabled their witnessing focused on embodiment, affect, and memory, challenging the traditional discourses on trauma and designated norms for appropriate subjectivity, affect, and narrative related to trauma. By reconfiguring trauma as a cultural

Visual Arts and Performing ArtsArts and Humanities
13
Article|3 citations·2016
Writing Witnessing, Witnessing Writing: Working Through Trauma Using Performative Autoethnography
Hyunji Kwon
Visual Culture & Gender

Centering on my transformation from a victim of sexual assault to a subject with sexual trauma, I examine how performative autoethnography differently addresses, responds to, and witnesses my own trauma. Kelly Oliver’s (2001) theory of witnessing provides a theoretical framework to witness through infinite address-ability and response-ability of subjectivity. In order to witness my trauma through increased subjectivity resulting from enhanced address-ability and response-ability, I use performat

Sociology and Political ScienceSocial Sciences
14
Book Chapter|2 citations·2014
Coordinated Divergences: Changes in Collective Bargaining Systems and Their Labour Market Implications in Korea
Hyunji Kwon, Sang‐Hoon Lim
General Health ProfessionsHealth Professions
15
Book Chapter|2 citations·2007
Non-Regular Work in Korea
Byoung‐Hoon Lee, Hyunji Kwon
Elsevier eBooks
General Health ProfessionsHealth Professions

Research Areas

Visual Arts and Performing ArtsSociology and Political ScienceGeneral Health ProfessionsStrategy and ManagementPublic AdministrationGender Studies

Dive deeper into Hyunji Kwon's research on Nubint

Open this lab's papers in the app to read with AI, summarize, and cite in your writing.