• SUVANNABHUMI
• /
• v.16 no.1
• /
• pp.39-80
• /
• 2024

Guided by the prism of cultural studies, this paper takes a look at the Manila Korea Town in Malate, Manila. The location, Manila Korea Town, figures as the paper's object of study by exploring, theorizing, and reflecting on its presence and location within the horizon of the signifying powers of Korea-Philippine relations in the contemporary period. With the subject position of this essay, the paper theorizes by responding to the following questions: How does the meaning-making of South Korea fare with other Koreatowns in the world from the scale of Koreatown in Manila? Subsequently, what happens to a place when a global cultural phenomenon evolves into a form of placemaking in a different nation and territory? As Koreatown finally grounds itself in the anarchic lifeworld of Manila, what does this historical development in our urban lives reveal about our contemporary times? Responding to this set of questions led this paper to foreground the idea of a modular imagined community within a four-part discussion. The body of the essay begins by theorizing on the concept that this paper proposes, modular imagined community, and such a concept work draws from the theories of nationalism by Benedict Anderson and Partha Chatterjee. Subsequently, the antinomy between Anderson and Chatterjee is pursued by looking at the history of such a place, and through this step, the paper unravels the character of the place of Manila Korea Town, which explains the conditions of possibility of such social and communitarian formation. Yet as the public is caught by the presence of such development especially at the heart of Manila, the paper expands the scale and viewpoint by shining light on the globality of South Korea in relation to the Philippines. Lastly, this paper closes with a discussion on the food culture facilitated by this recent development, which also pushes us to imagine its potential, especially in light of the critique raised against South Korea and the popular culture associated with this phenomenon.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
• /
• v.12 no.5
• /
• pp.540-556
• /
• 2006

The purpose of this paper is to analyze a process of formation of an ethnic community in the global era, taking an example of foreign workers in Igok-Dong, Dalseo-gu, Taegu. Previous studies suggest that playing a role as a hub of culture, resources and ethnic networks an ethnic community becomes an imagined space where its members can feel "us". Through this imagined space, ethnic people communicate and exchange information with each other and establish transnational linkages between their origin and destination countries or the third countries. In my research in Igok-Dong it was observed that ethnic shops had become the centers of the community of foreign workers and helped them connect with their own ethnic people from wider areas than their residence. Partly because of such networks exclusively focused on their own ethnics, there was little connection developed between foreign workers and locals. A social distance between the two parties may turn into antagonism as the ethnic community grows in number. Since it is foreseen that demands for foreign workers will continue to rise in Igok-Dong it is necessary to seek ways to achieve a more inclusive and harmonious multi-ethnic society for both foreign workers and locals.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
• /
• v.57 no.3
• /
• pp.473-493
• /
• 2011

This paper aims, first, to trace the trajectory of Sebastian Barry's dramatic works in terms of retrieving the hidden (hi)stories of his family members, and second, to analyze his most successful play to date in both critical and commercial senses, The Steward of Christendom, in terms of the tension or even rupture between Irish national history and the dramatic representation of it. If contemporary Irish drama as a whole can be seen as an act of mirroring up to nation, Barry's is a refracting than reflecting act. Whereas modern Irish drama tends to have helped, however inadvertently, consolidate the nation-state by imagining Ireland through its other (either in the form of the British empire or the Protestant Unionist north), Barry's drama aims at cracking the surface homogeneity of Irish identity by re-imagining "ourselves" (a forgotten part of which is a community of southern Catholic loyalists). Furthermore, the "ourselves" re-imagined in Barry's drama is more fractured than unified, irreducible in its multiplicity than acquiescent in its singularity. The playwright's foremost concern is to retrieve the lives of "history's leftovers, men and women defeated and discarded by their times" and re-member those men and women who have been expunged from the imagined community of the Irish nation. This he does by endowing "every life" with "an after-life" and "every demon" with "a fairy tale." The Steward of Christendom is Barry's dramatic attempt to bestow upon the historically demonized Thomas Dunne, an Irish policeman in the British Empire, his fairy-tale redemption.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
• /
• v.6 no.1
• /
• pp.263-267
• /
• 2020

In the Japanese colonial period of Korean history, appropriate conclusion often overwhelmed the historical imagination, and also pointed out that it shows a similar pattern in spite of the history detective novel genre that emerged with pointing out the limitations of modern history. Historical facts showing in , the legitimacy of independence based on nationalism, and modern civilization are well known in the historical and cultural contents of the Japanese colonial period. It is the reason why applied in historical and cultural contents, as the history as is for current desire of the public to the imaginary community(nation), and as the history which current social conflicts are reflected. History, historical facts and fiction are intermingled in the contents of history, and it is creating a new 'historical imagination'. As a matter of fact, there is only one fact of the past, but the historical imagination of historical and cultural contents is diverse as there is not one historical fact made by historians. History has not yet gone to the imagination for the future, but writing history through historical and cultural contents will create a 'history of possibilities'.

• Journal of Korean Society of Rural Planning
• /
• v.25 no.4
• /
• pp.129-149
• /
• 2019

This study is to give a three-dimensional view of the concept of rurality and ruralness in terms of time-span, perceived object and awareness level. In the precedent studies ruralness or rurality has been approached as the category of usefulness resources called amenity. This overlooked the perceived representation, institutional reference and rurality of ideological values. Rurality appears as a cumulative representation of being rural from the past to the present, but ruralness exists as a desirable form or value for the future. Through this study, it has been analyzed that ruralness consists of six realms such as environment, community, self-reliance, aesthetics, enjoyable amenity and settlement, and of three or four sub-realms by each amounting to 20 in total. According to the vocabulary listing by the survey to 30 experts, rurality for the past-present is mainly imagined as of natural environment, agriculture, landscape, and community history, while ruralness for the future is frequently described as of communities, settlement and self-reliance by number of references. Through the vocabulary extraction, 17 words in the level of mid-conception are induced including ecology, comfort, history, agriculture, landscape, place, culture, convenience, etc. In conclusion the concept of ruralness along with rurality could be organized into three different layers of perception consisting of representation, norms and usefulness.

• Journal of Korean Historical Folklife
• /
• no.27
• /
• pp.267-361
• /
• 2008

This article traces how the modern Chinese "nation" was constructed as an "imagined community" around Huang-ti (the Yellow Emperor) in late Qing. Huang-ti was a legendary figure in ancient China and the imperial courts monopolized the worship of him. Many late Qing intellectuals appropriated this symbolic figure and, through a set of discursive strategies of "framing, voice and narrative structure," transformed him into a privileged symbol for modern Chinese national identity. What Huang-ti could offer was, however, no more than a "public face" for the imagined new national community, or in other words, a formal structure without substantial contents. No consensus appeared on whom the Chinese nation should include and where the Chinese nation should draw its boundaries. The anti-Manchu revolutionaries emphasized the primordial attachment of blood and considered modern China an exclusive community of Huang-ti's descent. The constitutional reformers sought to stretch the boundaries to include the ethnic groups other than the Han. Some minority intellectuals, particularly the Manchu ones, re-constructed the historic memory of their ethnic origin around Huang-ti. The quarrels among intellectuals of different political persuasion testify how Huang-ti as the most powerful cultural symbol became a site for contests and negotiations in the late Qing process of national construction.

• (The) Research of the performance art and culture
• /
• no.22
• /
• pp.223-252
• /
• 2011

If we remember that modern world history has built systems of meaning through the concepts "difference," "different," and "other-ness" and has constructed new identity based on opposing hierarchy, music anthropology which tried to build "difference" between the west and the non-west was thoroughly west -centered, in the sense that it has perceived the heterogeneous symbolic systems among nations, as well as the barrier between the two cultures. On the other hand, world music, which has emerged as the most attractive field in culture industry and concert-art-market by crossing over global capitals, markets, and barriers, can be considered the most post-modernist and glocal. However, it is interesting to note that world music, which has been described as post-modern and glocal, has "difference" and "different" in its basis, just like the precepts for modern music anthropology (Meintjes 1990; Guilbault 1993; Taylor 1997; Frith 2000; Feld 1988). Furthermore, one can understand that the "different" and "difference," generally termed as being "non-western," are fundamentally based on ethnic or national imagination. In this sense it is interesting and important to examine such ethnic imagination in the "non-western ethnic musics" in music anthropology and in world music. Notwithstanding the attention paid and research made by music anthropologists, they have failed to elevate the "non-western ethnic musics" to become universally communicative, and these ethnic musics were reborn as "global" and "world music," through the process of "acculturation," "derivation," and "hybridization," with the west as major site for production and consumption. Meanwhile, the audience for world music, which did not exist before the birth of world music as a term, was now born as world music emerged. They are global populace who consume the musical "difference" and "imagined ethnicity," who through their consumption are constructing new social meanings including ethnicity, race, nation, and class identity. This study, by examining current discourse, performance, and process for the world music through media and field studies and scholarly debates, attempts to understand the production and consumption of "imagined ethnicity." This will also shed light on how "ethnicity" is created and consumed, and how this is involved in the process of world music.

• Korean journal of communication and information
• /
• v.16
• /
• pp.36-70
• /
• 2001

The purpose of this study is to investigate women's radio talk program and evaluate its possibilities and limitation from the point of feminist perspective. The theoretical framework is based on feminist studies and text analysis of talk show. Existing studies regarding talk show are mainly focused on television. But radio talk show is one of general entertainment and it's influences on minorities are still significant. is the most representative women's radio talk program in Korea. It has been broadcasted over 10 years and very popular among Korean housewives. The audience of this program call themselves schoolfellow, and call the program 'school of women'. The media text of is mainly consisted of letters from women audiences, and they are selected by producers. So the text is made by both audiences and producers. The unique combination of this process produces complicated discourses which contain women's experiences in letters and station's considerations through safekeeping. The problems investigated in this study are as follows: First, What discourses are produced in this program? Second, Alternative possibilities can be seen in this program in feminist perspectives? Text analysis of 1week(2000.9.18-9.24) and interview with producers are accomplished to this purposes. In the text analysis, subject matters, inscribed women's position, values of the letters are revealed. Most of the subject matters are family affairs. Some are socially oriented but family and home are the predominant category of women's letters. And the position of women subject is defined in the domestic network. They are nameless but the mother, wife, daughter, daughter-in-law of other people. In value, family-oriented value and small happiness in everyday life are generally appeared. But these values are essentially coincide with the values of status quo. The answers of the conflict are not public but individualized. And acception the status quo is presented as the wisest decision, But ` has many implications in relation to women's sharing of their experience, and construction of imagined community in media. Women continuously interact each other revealing and discussing their experiences and sometimes their social practices are stirred through this media sphere. So we see the 'emotional union' among women are formed through radio. The limitation of this program is very apparent: it's patriarchic values, acception of status quo, and individualization of the women's problems. But in the same time we can read coexisting it's latent possibilities: the possibilities of women's public sphere. But it is completely alternative women's sphere in feminist perspectives. It renders women opportunities to participate public media and share with other women, and collaborate with their problem.

• (The) Research of the performance art and culture
• /
• no.34
• /
• pp.111-131
• /
• 2017

Korean Shamanism has long been regarded as the peripheral cult or supersition by the majoriy of the society. This fact is a result by the influence of the mass media, especially the motion pictures, which intentionally reflected the negative images of the Shamanism. The documentary films, which stress the objectivity and the reality, rather disclose the neutral position toward the Shamanism. In fact, the directors of the documentary films who have more or less close relationship with the Shamanism have tried to exhibit the mental world and the traditionality of the Shamanism. In this paper, I will explore the value of Shamanism reflected in the documentary films. I focus of two films; directed by the Korean and directed by a foreigner. In this way, I can compare the attitudes of the two directors toward the Korean Shamanism. The director of confessed that he was attracted by the aspect of a musical underlied in the shaman ritual. However, the film does not show the artistic beauty of the shaman music because the director failed to understand the essential aspect of the shaman ritual, that is, the music. In this way, the director failed to show the distinct characteristics of the shamanism to the audience. The director of , a music herself, was focused on the music of the shamanism. The story flows to the adventure to seek a "master" with a long journey to enjoy diverse genres of Korean performing arts. This story resembles the epic shaman song, the Princess Bari. In this way, the audience can easily grasp the beauty of Korean culture. Music is said to be a universal language and, at the same time, a non-universal language which reflects a special trait of a cultural community. The Korean shaman ritual music is a non-universal language that is an accumulation of the Korean culture for a long time. The Korean director fails to exhibit the essential characteristics of the Shamanism since he does not have enough knowledge toward the shaman ritual music in . However, the foreign director, who is a music herself, successively disclose the underlying beauty of Korean shaman ritual music and Korean traditional culture in .