Fulbright Media

This presentation marks the completion of Jacob Reidhead’s MA thesis at the University of Washington wherein he compares the origins of economic reform in Asia’s socialist economies: China, Vietnam, and North Korea. In particular, he will present a comparative framework for reform derived from the historical experience of these three economies and then leverage this framework in order to answer the question of why China and Vietnam have successfully been able to reform but North Korea has not. Implications of these findings for the prospect of reforms in Kim Jong-un’s North Korea will also be discussed. His hope is that those in attendance will actively participate and leave with a more sophisticated and analytically sound understanding of the challenges to economic reform in North Korea.

Biography
 Jacob Reidhead first traveled to Korea as a Christian missionary in 1998, in the aftermath of the IMF-Asian Financial Crisis. Following two years of missionary service, he returned again in 2004-2006 as a Korean Flagship Language Initiative fellow and graduate student at Korea University. He has since traveled to North Korea twice, for two weeks as a member of a Eugene Bell delegation in 2006 and for five months as a USNGO food monitor during the 2008-2009 USAID food program. Jacob subsequently entered a Ph.D. program in Sociology at the University of Washington where he is pursuing research on the origins and effects of the post-Cold War transitions of Asia’s socialist economies.

Haenyeo, Jeju, and the Future of Marine Conservation
 
On Jeju Island, fisherwomen, known widely today as haenyeo (해녀), have a long-standing tradition of free-diving into the ocean for seafood such as abalone, kelp, seaweed, sea cucumber, turban shell, and octopus. Over the past year, Grace has been researching these women and the Jeju fishing villages, focusing largely on their traditional ecological knowledge and resource management techniques. Grace has been specifically investigating what implications this disappearing way-of-life may have on future marine conservation efforts.

Biography
 
Graduating from Cornell University with a biology degree in 2010, Grace developed a deep interest in marine biology and environmental conservation during her undergraduate studies. While reading a marine biology textbook (for fun) one summer, she happened upon a small paragraph about haenyeo that piqued her curiosity and consequently led to her Fulbright project on traditional ecological knowledge. In the future, she hopes to earn her doctorate in marine ecology and to become a scientist and teacher working towards a deeper understanding of our ocean ecosystems.