The current compilation of chapters included in this edited volume aims to achieve three objectives. First, the editors attempted to put together in a single volume a wide array of “critical” social research in English language on contemporary Korean society. Just as there has been an explosion of interest, at the academic as well as the public level, in all things Korean during the last decade so does a proliferation of social scientific investigation into socio-political dimension of Korea with English language as a medium of communication. The latter’s category represents width and depth both in terms of research interests and of writers with different disciplinary backgrounds. Thus the editors duly felt the need to collate those rapidly increasing body of works in one place in a systematic manner so that English-speaking readers can appreciate the range and scholarship of social scientific research in contemporary Korean society. So far as the editors are aware there is a dearth of collected works in this direction, among them the ones with “critical” approaches are even fewer. Therefore the simple fact that this kind of collection has finally come into being may be of significance to the concerned public, reflective practitioners, as well as to the academics and scholars in this field. It is our hope that the readers will now be able to get a grasp of contemporary Korean society through a critical lens, written by a pool of keen observers and commentators in this area.
Second, related to the first point, the volume was intended to give outside observers of Korean society a “balanced” perspective, a taste of richness and variety, and, above all, an objective picture of Korean society in a scientific manner. This point cannot be over-emphasized because most existing studies into the subject have tended to possess a sort of “systematic bias” in their philosophical and ideological perspectives and assumptions, and their political starting point. So much so in fact that there seemed to be an unspoken consensus among the majority of vernacular commentators writing in English on Korean society which favored weaving a rather conservative narrative of contemporary Korean society. This volume intends to challenge this kind of established tendency and to offer a countervailing frame of reference. The basic premise of this endeavor is that a modern society needs to be approached and analyzed in a multi-layered way that reflects and accommodates the structural, institutional, ideational, and psychological dimensions of society, including the result of committed actions as well as of omitted ones. Only in this way, the editors believe, are we able to get closer to the “heart of the matter” in understanding Korean society, or any other society for that matter. This kind of approach has another, more practical dimension to consider as well, i.e., an asymmetry of represented works in English language along the conservative-progressive continuum of ideological spectrum. This skewed representation means that those new entrants to this field with a limited historical and linguistic background in Korean affairs may have a difficulty in acquiring the whole variety of competing interpretations and analyses which are indeed vigorously played out in the public debate in Korea. This volume therefore is expected to provide English- speaking readers with a new way of critical thinking toward Korean society.
Last but not least the book is expected to play a role in developing a new path of research for a future multi-level epistemological approach and in triggering a cross- fertilization between scholars inside and outside Korea. It is well known that there is a wide variety, in terms of level of understanding, of the focus of attention, and of the meaning drawn from investigation, among researchers on a same topic with very different backgrounds. For example, a detailed analysis of a particular social problem written by a Korean scholar may be hard to understand or at least not immediately relevant for those who are new to the subject. Nevertheless these kinds of hands-on studies written by vernacular scholars may become more pertinent and interesting when a reader becomes more and more versed to the situation on the ground level. Likewise, a piece of analysis on certain aspects of Korean society written by an external observer may apparently look either too sweeping a generalization or too idiosyncratic a focus to the eyes of conventional Korean readers. Nevertheless domestic readers could learn from these studies how to see themselves from a new bird’s eye view, and how to shed new light on to those aspects of society which “insiders” tend to take for granted but which still are important in their own right. In other words, by doing this a new way of seeing can be instilled into domestic readers who will realize that the social reality that they have long assumed to be “theirs” is not their monopolized reality after all. Of course these processes can be produced and reproduced in numerous ways. In the event, all of us, regardless of their nationality, familiarity with the reality, or the medium of communication,could benefit from inter-subjectivity and reflexivity resulting from a “spiral” sort of knowledge circulation.
It was very fortunate for us editors to have been able to enlist the enthusiastic participation of some of the finest social scientists in contemporary Korea for this book project. Not only did they allow their papers to be included in the edition but also some of them gave us valuable advice on editorial policy. The editors are also grateful to various academic journals and the presses for their kind permission for us to use works which had been originally published in their media. Thanks are also due to postgraduate students at SungKongHoe University in Seoul who have helped locate the material and process the cumbersome database works. A collaborative endeavor of this kind necessarily involves many sources of support, obvious as well as less obvious, so our deep gratitude to all of them for making this project possible. It is our sincere hope that the final result would be of some value in seeing contemporary Korean society from fresh and critical perspectives.
Hee-Yeon Cho, Lawrence Surendra, and Hyo-Je Cho March 2012