The Shifting Gears: Women’s Voices and Generational Change in South Korea’s Workplace (Interview Part 2)

What are some of the biggest issues currently facing workers in South Korea, particularly in the transit industry? This second part of our conversation focuses on the issues South Korean women have faced as they enter the workforce within the transportation industry.

Over the course of our entire conversation, SungHee, Director of International Affairs at the KPTU, discusses gender-based discrimination women have encountered since entering the transportation industry, generational shifts among the youth changing societal dynamics in South Korea, and the increase in gig workers in the transportation industry. She explains how the comparatively more senior KPTU has sought to adapt to these contemporary changes to the transportation industry.

This is the second interview in a new podcast interview series in which I talk with experts about the social issues that help shape our world. You can see the first interview in the series about the, at the time, upcoming 2024 election here.

Disclaimer: I was having some technical issues, so that’s why during parts of the interview, I may sound a little glitchy. Luckily, SungHee sounds mostly fine.

Links of the Materials We Discuss:

KPTU website: https://kptu.net/english/index.aspx

KPTU FB page: https://www.facebook.com/kptu00

The Shifting Gears: Women’s Voices and Generational Change in South Korea’s Workplace (Interview Part 1)

What are some of the biggest issues currently facing workers in South Korea, particularly in the transit industry? This first part of my conversation with SungHee Oh focuses specifically on the development of gig workers and generational shifts among South Korean youth within the South Korean transportation sector.

Over the course of our entire conversation, SungHee, Director of International Affairs at the KPTU, discusses gender-based discrimination women have encountered since entering the transportation industry, generational shifts among the youth changing societal dynamics in South Korea, and the increase in gig workers in the transportation industry. She explains how the comparatively more senior KPTU has sought to adapt to these contemporary changes to the transportation industry.

This is the second interview in a new podcast interview series in which I talk with experts about the social issues that help shape our world. You can see the first interview in the series about the, at the time, upcoming 2024 election here.

Disclaimer: I was having some technical issues, so that’s why during parts of the interview, I may sound a little glitchy. Luckily, SungHee sounds mostly fine.

Links of the Materials We Discuss:

KPTU website: https://kptu.net/english/index.aspx

KPTU FB page: https://www.facebook.com/kptu00

Those Forced Out: Conservatives who Never Supported Donald Trump and the Contemporary Republican Party and its Implications for Presidential Elections – Part 1 of an Interview with Kyle Morrison (Interview #1 in a New Series)

What is it like to feel kicked out of one’s party? What role does social media play in dividing people politically in the United States and Canada, and what can we do to bridge these gaps? And finally, what are the implications of all of these on presidential elections?

I interviewed Kyle Morrison to talk about these questions. He’s an anthropologist who has studied conservatives or those leaning conservative who have felt disgruntled with Donald Trump and the contemporary Republican party (sometimes also called Never Trumpers). Here, he talks about what he learned from talking with them about how they navigate the current divisive political world in the United States and what that may mean for the upcoming 2024 election.

In this first part, we discuss the experiences such conservatives have and the implications for this presidential election and the last several presidential elections.

He also describes how through his research with this group, he learned to listen to and engage with people he does not agree with politically and ways to do that in the current political landscape. He is not a conservative but wanted to use this research to seek to understand those on the “other side.” We in the United States live in one of the most politically divided eras of our history, making such initiatives all the more important to foster empathy and understanding with those one disagrees with.

This is the first interview in a new podcast interview series where I talk with others from around the world to learn how different people navigate life. This first interview focuses on a political anthropology expert in US politics, but my interviews will be of people from different cultures around the world – some experts, some not – to learn more about humanity and the different ways people navigate our complex contemporary world.

Note: We recorded the interview a few days before Joe Biden dropped out of the race and Kamala Harris became the Democratic Party candidate for the election, so you will hear us talk about Biden as the Democratic candidate.

Links for the Materials We Discuss

The Atlantic Monthly Podcast Episode I Mention:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TJ42eHo6xE&pp=ygUkdGhlIGF0bGFudGljIGhvdyB0byBoYXZlIGFuIGFyZ3VtZW50