Individual Papers 1 HELEN KIM, University of Leeds Embracing the Funk: Celebrating Authenticity and Nation at the New Malden Kimjang Festival in 2021 29 SEONOK LEE, NHAN NGUYEN, ROBERT VENGERS, JOANA DUARTE, University of Groningen and SUZANNE V. DEKKER, Mercator European Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning / Fryske Akademy Exploring the Educational Power…
Abstract In this paper, I explore the ways that authenticity and diasporic “Koreanness” were performed at a “kimjang” festival in New Malden, Surrey, a suburb of London, held in November 2021. The event provided an opportunity to display authentic kimchi and by association, determine an authentic Koreanness in the UK. I focus on how kimchi…
Abstract Amidst a surge of global popularity of K-pop, our study delves into adolescent attitudes and the efficacy of K-pop and Korean popular culture as educational tools for stereotype reduction. Our Korean popular culture workshops showed limited effectiveness in diminishing implicit and explicit East Asian stereotypes, aligning with Lai et al.’s transient impact findings,7 as…
Abstract South Korea has long been looked to as an exemplary case of rapid economic expansion. Further, proponents of the South Korean development model have tended to not only extoll its industrial ascent during the 1960s and 1970s but also herald the fact that its breakneck developmental pace was attained in conjunction with a relatively…
Abstract This paper illustrates the role of Seoul-based researchers within Japan’s efforts to expand fieldwork and scholarship into central Inner Mongolia, and the creation of the puppet state of Mengjiang (Mōkyō) in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Academics based at Keijō Imperial University (the antecedent institution to Seoul National University) made efforts to document…
Abstract The National Museum of Korean Contemporary History in Seoul was first proposed in 2008 by conservative president Lee Myung-bak (Yi Myŏngbak), and opened its doors in late 2012. Its permanent exhibition was criticized as a manifestation of conservative historical narratives. As a result, once progressives regained power, the museum was remodeled, only to see…
Abstract While increasing social inequality and precarity is a common global phenomenon, the ways in which social inequality is felt, perceived, and responded to by young citizens differ from country to country. This paper investigates institutional contexts in which young people in Japan and South Korea make sense of social inequality in different ways: why,…
Abstract This paper explores how the culture of protest in South Korea has changed since the pro-democracy movement against the military authoritarian regime in the 1980s and thereby contextualizes how the routinization of the candlelight vigils from the early 2000s impacts the nation’s politics. Candlelight vigils—outdoor assemblies of people lighting candles after sunset in the…
Abstract The expression N-p’o sedae describes young Koreans who give up everything in their lives because of socio-economic pressures. As the phenomenon of renunciation, especially of marriage and family, persists among young Koreans today, this paper examines how renunciation manifests among them and possible gender-based differences in the phenomenon. The paper, based on a sequentialexplorat……
Abstract Understanding North Korean migrant experiences in South Korea is essential not only for advancing the topic of marginalization of newcomers, but also because it reveals elements of the capitalist economic system overlooked by those who simply emphasize the importance of unification and integration of the new migrants. To assess the life satisfaction of North…