ABSTRACT
In this essay, I will explain how I have come to an epistemological middle ground between the principles of objectivity and privilege by detailing my various identities, which may be described as “betwixt and between”a number of boundaries, and how they have shaped my approach to my work. These identities encompass the inborn characteristics of being Korean and female and are supplemented by the factors of cultural upbringing and professional institutional environment. Most importantly, the line of development between my personal identities and scholarship has led me to a particular view of some current trends in Buddhist studies, which is my academic home. I offer this view in part as a critique of what I see but also as a demonstration of how my own historical embeddedness has led me to it. Hence my offering is double-edged but ultimately optimistic, for I believe that the perspectives posed by our individual histories are also the means by which we can overcome our limitations in knowledge. Such transcendence is a collective enterprise that is inimical to the interiorizing strategy of “epistemological privilege.”
