Marginalized communities developed ‘disaster subculture’ when living through extreme climate events

Dr. Joonmo Kang, assistant professor of social welfare, spent a year living in Jjokbang-chon, an extremely impoverished neighborhood in Seoul, as part of an ethnographic research project. Residents there routinely live through extreme heat and cold in tiny, 70-square-foot units about the size of a closet. Over the course of a year, he interviewed residents about their experiences and worked with local social agencies to understand how they worked with the residents.