UC San Diego

This dissertation explores how mothers of young adults with developmental disabilities (DDs) in Korea situate themselves both as activists and carers in the disability rights movement. Studies on maternal politics have discussed how mothers overcome insufficient political opportunities or material resources by taking advantages of maternal identities and motherhood. Instead, this dissertation focuses on symbolic resources in the dominant pool of social knowledge. Korean society does not have adequate resources to unearth and articulate the lives of people with DDs and their family caregivers in socially visible and intelligible ways. Due to the limited resources, mothers not only have difficulty in negotiating their urgent needs with the state but also justifying their new identities as activists.

In this context, this dissertation explores how mothers come to generate symbolic resources while gradually developing new identities as disability activists. Based on in-depth ethnographic data and an analysis of documents published in the period between 2010 and 2021, I argue that mothers exert their agential power in their daily lives against a caring state, a welfare state that permeates everyday life to care for its citizens. Some forms of resistance may appear to align with the dominant maternal role scripts as they are not easily identifiable at the national level. Moreover, I suggest an alternative approach to women’s micromobilization by delineating the multi-levels of symbolic performances that mothers play in their interactions with fellow mothers as well as the Korean state. By doing so, this dissertation sheds light on the critical power of everyday symbolic interactions that enable marginalized groups to be empowered and mobilized for social change.