Latin American Regional Study Trend and Individual Nation Study

라틴아메리카 지역연구동향 및 개별국가연구

With the beginning of systemized research on Latin American region as a part of the third world in the mid-60s, Latin American regional studies in Korea acquired a steppingstone for development through the establishment of Hankook University of Foreign Studies Central & South American Regional Study, the creation of Central & South America Research Center, and Latin American Society established in the mid-80s. Latin American regional studies achieved quantitative and qualitative growth with the natioal globalization policy in the 90s, and research centers related to Latin America in Seoul National University, Pusan University of Foreign Studies, Dankook University, and Sunmoon University have contributed to the activation of regional studies. In spite of such achievements, Latin American regional studies, which have developed with 40 years of history, still possess problems that need to be solved. This study achieves qualitative analysis on theses published from 2000 to March 2001 in main Latin America regional study academic journals in Korea to analyze Latin American regional study trend of the recent 10 years in order to search measures for activating Latin American regional studies. Academic journals used in analysis include "Ibero America Research" of Seoul National University Research Center of Central & South America, Spain, "Central & South America Research" of Hankook University of Foreign Studies Research Center of Central & South America, "Ibero America Research" of Pusan University of Foreign Studies Central & South America Center, and "Latin America Research" published by Latin American Society. According to analysis on publication ratio of published theses according to field, it was presented that culture and politics fields occupied the highest ratio. Social and cultural fields, the elementary studies of regional research which have previously presented a weak research tendency, have achieved noticeable development during the past 10 years. According to analysis on researched nations, Latin America regional study was weighted in particular nations, and nations of economic size and political influence within region were selected as main subjects of research. Furthermore, several nations were not researched at all. For the last 10 years, the depth and width of the Latin America regional study had been decided by the degree of political, economic, social, and cultural significance occupied by the nation. It can be said that studies based on overall understanding on regional countries of Latin America have been relatively weak in individual nation study. Furthermore, studies that separate issues to achieve analysis based on the awareness theory of individual branches can be regarded dominant among studies based on entire Latin America. These studies still possess limitations in failing to deviate from the outline of particular region and topic.