Looking back with PhD Candidate Jae-Young Lee

LolMyThesis. My thesis in a tagline: So you think the remote rural mountain cabin you booked on AirBnB is so edgy?

It’s all about that space. The CRC concepts that does the most heavy-lifting in my thesis: I think among all the concepts of the CRC, the concept of the construction of space is probably the most inevitable in everything I do. This concept describes how the spaces around us are built not only by our physical actions in space but also through our imagination, (digital) communication and embodied knowledge. As my research is conducted in remote rural areas and questions established rural/urban perceptions, this processual view of how space is literally produced is super helpful to cling to.

Looking back. What advice would I give to my past self who was just starting their PhD? Hm… ‘You are allowed to not know things immediately, and you are always a person and a body first in the field’. I had initially perceived these two things as my greatest vulnerabilities as someone who came from a practical vocation. But now I think that disclosing and exploring them methodologically has really benefitted my thinking.

A day in a life. A typical day as a PhD researcher depends on whether you are in the field or at your “home base”, and whether you are in a writing phase or a more administrative and project-focused phase. Doing a PhD felt like freelancing full-time, juggling diverse meetings, side projects, administrative tasks, while constantly trying to carve out chunks of time to read, think, and write. So, I’d say, no two days really were the same.

It’s all about the spatial arrangement. My ideal writing setting is an empty table close to a large window with natural ventilation. Then I’m good to go.

When you know, you know. In hindsight, the most surprising thing about doing a PhD was realizing how important it is to allow ideas to ferment in your brain for just the right amount of time, so they’re perfectly ‘soured’ and you can comprehend their precise meaning in a particular context. It also made me realize how much it makes your eyes want to pop out of their sockets from overthinking…  but in a fun way, of course!

Back to the future. It feels very weird to give advice when I haven’t finished my PhD yet, to be honest. But if I had to give PhDs starting out in the next phase of the CRC some advice, maybe I would say: always speak up and ask about anything you don’t understand. Practice radical listening that goes beyond your research questions. …And enjoy it! The people, the field, and the work! This is a temporary gig, so enjoy it while you can 😊

Author Bio: Jae-Young Lee is an architect and PhD researcher in the CRC 1265 subproject B01 “Peripheralized Rural Areas” and at the Leibniz-Institute for Research on Society and Space. Her work explores grassroots dynamics of platform ruralisation and practices of insurgency between Chile, South Korea and the Thai-Myanmar border.