Clara Hwayeon Lee

Clara is a PhD candidate in the Anthropology Department at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her dissertation, “Refusing Empire through Care: Anti-Base Dissent in Soseongri, South Korea,” delves into the embodied, expressive, and often invisible forms of dissent adopted by the Korean peace movement in a rural mountainous village where the US military installed a missile defense base in 2017. Her research centers on the stories of people whose marginalized geographic and political subjectivities continue to be erased in national and transnational rhetoric claiming that militarization ensures security. Framing the political broadly and inclusively, she explores how community care sustains the movement and inspires the capacity for hope in the face of broader national apathy about the potential for different ways of living collectively and safely.