Debates on the ′Generation Culture′ in the Process of Consumer Society

소비사회의 전개와 한국 세대문화론의 시각

This study starts with a remark on the frequent usage of the term 'generation culture' in the explanations of cultural change. The term 'generation culture' itself does have neither a clear meaning nor any academic consensus for its operational definition yet. Depending on intuitions or common senses, in most cases, of everyday lift experience, the tends to designate the co-existence of different cultural layers as composing subsystems of a little broader Korean cultural trend. I tried here to analyze different positions and perspectives in the employment of this term, sometimes with strategic intentions of each social groups. Economic or political positions, for example, are intertwined with the quest of identification concerning 'we' and 'other' grouping dynamics in the Age of Globalization, which accelerates the speed of cultural re-territorialization. And the role of consumption activity as a kind of cultural indication has gained more weight in that process. This analysis will remind us, also, of the post-modem society's assumption about the space-and-time in transition, and its fluctuation.