Body
I have never believed in the current hierarchy of the social sciences that places economics at the center with the rest of the disciplines as planets rotating in closer or more distant orbits. Among those most distant in this model is clearly anthropology, with its emphasis on the particular. But to paraphrase Tip O’Neill, sometimes all knowledge that we need is local. Nancy Abelmann was without doubt one of the most able Koreanists in the country, generating a rich body of work on social movements (her thesis at Berkeley dealt with farmers), women, social mobility, cinema and most recently education (here). Expansive in her interests, she also worked on Korean-Americans, from a book with John Lie on the Los Angeles riots to her 2009 book on Korean American students. At the University of Illinois she built up a center of excellence in Korean studies and was a mentor to many who carry on her values, holding professorial positions in Asian-American Studies, Anthropology, East Asian Languages and Women’s Studies. But in the end, there is only one way to be a good anthropologist—or at least ethnographer—and that is to be an empathetic person. This interview from 2010, passed along by a colleague shows her remarkable fluency in Korean, a metaphor for her deeper understanding of the culture. A model for many, her death is particularly sad because of her youth and energy. A more personal obituary can be found in the local New Gazette.
