Rethinking of Research and Educational Trends in Foreign Studies Field in Korea

한국에서의 해외지역 연구와 교육에 대한 비판적 고찰

This paper is aimed to examine the current research and educational problems of foreign studies in Korean universities and review some alternative ways. Area studies as foreign studies have several characteristics which are different from those of the other research disciplines. It is a research and educational program that promotes comprehensive understanding about political, economic, social, and cultural phenomena of a specific area in the world. For better understand 'others', researchers in the field of area studies must explain the whole mechanism of the area, which could be revealed in terms of the very existence of its reality. Foreign studies are accomplished with joint-research method, collaborating two or more different research disciplines and based on the contemporary system of knowledge accumulation and educational program. Therefore, the critical issue can be gradually taken on a political and social characteristic. At this point, research and educational manner in foreign studies field in Korea should be changed to secure the academic reflections of temporality, sociality, placeness using a new paradigm such as complexity.