• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.64 no.4
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• pp.585-600
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• 2018

Over the last three decades, the field of American Studies has increasingly paid attention to transnational approaches in an effort to diversify and expand the field's concerns beyond the narrow sense of the nation-state in today's globalizing world. Yet, the mediation of the transnational requires a careful analysis of the nation that is still in transit. In this context, this essay examines Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick (1851) as a case study that vividly shows how reading American literature and culture through transnationalism not only offers new interpretations of canonical texts, but also helps us to better understand the historical roots and cultural contexts of contemporary issues such as global labor and migration, US citizenship and racial justice. To address the complexity of the text's circulation and reproduction, coupled with US national ideology and cultural conditions, I first turn to the canonization of Melville's Moby-Dick during the Cold War era as a national project and then explore the possibilities of transnational readings by focusing on the politics of race and global capitalism in the nineteenth century whaling industry. In doing so, I argue that critical transnationalism allows readers to keep questioning about their own understanding of race, nation, and cultural identity while remaining attentive to the destructive force of US imperialism and global capitalism in the twenty-first century.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.70
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• pp.66-94
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• 2015

Postcolonialism, as a school of thought, has become enormously influential for understanding the recent phenomena of globalization. While rejecting the universalizing categories of the Enlightenment, postcolonialism has called into question the old idea of culture and identity as a transcendent regime of authenticity and purity. It has also celebrated the diasporic experiences that entail porous and hybrid cultural identities as a potential site of struggle and resistance against the dominant cultural and discursive order. It is argued, however, that postcolonial theory's emancipatory claims relating to the diversified global culture tend to be complicit with transnational capitalism that brings about global issues of material as well as cultural injustice. This article, through a thorough review of the ways the postcolonial theoretical framework has been developed and appropriated by main figures in postcolonial scholarship, seeks for a theoretical and critical strategy to grasp the complex conditions of global inequality.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.17-23
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• 2015

Purpose - Transnational corporations (TNCs) have influenced drastic changes (financial services, manufacturing, labor, technology transfer) in Central Eastern Europe (CEE). This paper examines the indirect changes in the CEE pattern of industrial development and market distribution. Research design, data, and methodology - Over 25 years, neighboring (or rival) countries competed to attract TNCs as a double-edged strategy for privatization and debt reduction. Through their experience attracting foreign direct investment (FDI), many countries started to reflect aspects of national capitalism. Countries also began to realize in 2010 that TNCs sought to enter markets with more favorable conditions for export-oriented manufacturing. Results - The analysis reveals that TNC investment strategies were aimed at eliminating local competition to acquire industrial "brown fields" to convert into "green fields." CEE countries have since strengthened their national systems and the support of large-scale state-owned enterprises and small and medium-sized start-up enterprises. Conclusions - CEE has changed based on industrial development and a regional structure of TNC market distribution and associated government policies. The pattern toward flexible markets gives countries the ability to further their economies.

• Journal of International Area Studies (JIAS)
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.129-153
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• 2010

The guiding research question of this paper is to discover 'why the UK could not develop a general structure in which transnational corporations were born during the end of the 19th ~ beginning of the 20th century like other countries'. In response to this question, although acknowledging its imperfections, the author would like to explore the causality in the context of 'Social Construction' which is reflected in the attributes of British society. As such, researchers are strongly recommended to take into account the actors' interests and the increased value effect of events which is driven by control power. This paper concludes that: firstly, not only was contempt for industrial capitalism prevalent in British society, the British government was unable to recognize the necessity of promoting policies for the development of transnational corporation. In addition, the increase in the clout of commercial-financial capitalists in the city of London along with the expansion of gentlemanly elites interfered with the transnationality of British companies. Secondly, the foundation of the political and economic structures in the UK experienced continuity and challenge simultaneously. Since the 1850's, the British social structure has been progressively characterized by the strengthening power of the commercial-financial elites in London, which resulted not in the transnationality of manufacturing but that of financial services. Finally, the configuration of the social network driven by the British elites consists of the actors' interests and control power in association with severance and connection. Unlike the complementarity of interests, in the initial stage, intended connection based on voluntary motivation between gentries and commercial-financial elites occurred in terms of control power. However, ultimately, the holding of power was transferred to the commercial-financial elites excluding the industrial capitalists and resulted in the reconfiguration of the social network.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.131-143
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to understand the living culture of transnational married women and to analyze the out door play of children in their hometown. The data was collected through observation from 27th June to 7th July 2008 in Jian, Jilin Province China. The children's play and lifestyles were observed, and data pertaining to the culture of the people were collected by a teacher and staff. We also visited the residents for housing information. The results are given below. 1. They dressed in Korean clothes on festive days and the boys put on a hood. They had eating habits which included cooking for themselves or buying semi-manufactured goods but did not use, instant food. The housing habits involved a combination of cooking and heating by Korean floor heating system(Ondol). They utilized outdoor space to grow vegetables. Those with a fulltime job(teacher) preferred to live in an apartment but an apartment was too expensive. Public utility charges and traffic expenses were cheap. 2. The main festive days are the lunar New Year's Day and Chuseok. The children returned home and enjoyed the festive day with their parents. The language used are Korean language and Chinese. Some Korean words and phrases in Jian Joseonjok have different meanings as compared to how they are used in Korea. A capping ceremony did not to celebrate becoming an adult from an adolescent. Couples performed a wedding ceremony at a wedding hall attended by their parents and invited relatives from both families. The relatives gave the couple a wedding gift. They did not go on a wedding trip as it was not affordable but instead spent their wedding night at a hotel in this culture. When someone dies, they bury the body after cremation. They perform a memorial service for three years on the birthday of the departed. They have a banquet on the 60th birthdays with their relatives and neighbours and are typically presented with a carp for longevity. 3. They understand capitalism and therefore send their children to school to improve their social position. The Korean and Chinese languages are required subjects in school. The students choose a second language(English or Russian). They prefer English class but at the time of this study an English class was not offered at the school in Jian Joseonjok. Therefore the children entered a Chinese school. 4. The children play outdoor games such as Y$\acute{a}$o J$\grave{i}\bar{a}$(要家), X$\grave{i}$ang g$\grave{i}$(象棋), T$\grave{i}\grave{a}$o p$\acute{i}$ j$\grave{i}$n(r)(跳皮節), D$\grave{o}$uch ing g$\grave{u}$n 凍冷根, B$\bar{e}$i B$\bar{e}$i 背背, and soccer. They play games according to the season.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.635-654
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• 2009

Recently, concepts of multicultural society and/or multiculturalism have been not only widely discussed across several disciplines, but also actively promoted in government's policy, as the in-flow of foreign immigrants has increased rapidly. This paper suggests the term 'multicultural space' instead of multicultural society in a sense that both international migration of immigrants and their accommodation to a certain locality presuppose a spatial dimension. This paper also points out that the term multiculturalsim should be used very carefully, because this term includes a normative character implied in a sense of recognition of ethnic and cultural diversity and difference on the one hand, and an ideological one reflected on strategic policies of capital and the state on the other. On the basis of recognition of these problems, this paper tries to reformulate spatially the concept of muticultural society which has been supposed to be constructed due to rapidly increasing foreign immigrants, emphasizing some usefulness of multi-scalar approach. It then analyzes economic and political contexts of transnational migration, providing a criticism of multiculturalism as an ideological logic of capital and the state in transnational captialism. Finally it put a stress upon importance of struggle for spaces of recognition as a new glocal ethics in the age of post-globalization.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.52-75
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• 2021

The current Korean labour movement is at an impasse that is partly sustained by the idea of "strong" transnational corporations (TNCs) versus "weak" labour, and this perception is based on the "global-local dichotomy," wherein TNCs are depicted as abstract and structured entities operating at the global scale and workers are represented as having a concrete and weak presence within the local sphere. As an alternative perspective to break this "global" capital vs. "local" labour dichotomy, I focus on labour geography, which assumes that labour is not simply a factor of production but a sentient spatial actor that (un-)intentionally produces the landscape of capitalism. Borrowing insights from the multi-scalar perspective, this paper aims to understand the actual methods in which workers utilize spatial strategies through an empirical case study of the Nestlé Korea labour union strike in 2003. Based on this case study, this paper claims that workers are both capable of employing coordinated multi-scalar practices and can be more influential to the economic geographies of TNCs. Additionally, it suggests that workers' scalar practices are actually more complicated and multi-directional as a result of their complex and dynamic interactions with political, economic and cultural forces and actors at diverse geographical scales.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.237-253
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• 2022

This article offers an account of how regional development policy in Korea has evolved under the influence of actor-networks comprising the cultural circuit of soft capitalism. In so doing, the roles played by transnational actor-networks forged between global consulting firms and national business media are emphasized. For this discussion, the waning of spatial Keynesianism in the country is contextualized in the first place, with particular attention to changing planning goals of key regional development policies including consultancies, influential policy gurus (e.g., Michael Porter and Richard Florida), and local business media outlet Maekyong are found to be key movers and shakers in the transition. These empirical findings call for striking a balance between dominant structuralist accounts and emerging actor-oriented approaches, and also help shed a new light on the dualistic conceptualization of managerialist and entrepreneurial governance in a way that the latter may be a new form of the former.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.25
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• pp.55-85
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• 2011

Many States such as Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, California, New Mexico, Florida were obtained either from Spanish Empire or from Mexico. In 1848 due to the Guadalupe-Hidalgo treaty America could obtain half of the original territory of Mexico. American identity cannot be understood without the history of American expansionism further consolidated by the Spanish-American War in 1898, which brought other ex-Spanish colonies such as Guam, Puerto Rico, the Philippines to the US. The US's interest in these territories dates back to the Monroe doctrine in 1823 when Monroe "declared the Americas off-limits to any new European colonization." America justifies their expansion based on the notion of Manifest Destiny which was created by O'Sullivan at the hight of American fever to annex Texas to US. The intent of this paper is to study how Anglo-Saxon and Latin Culture clashed against each other especially right before and after the Spanish-American War. In this study the American hero, Theodore Roosevelt and Latin American hero, $Jos{\acute{e}}$ Martí will be compared, though they did not meet each other during the Spanish-American war due to Marti's early death in 1895 at the battle for the Cuba Libre. Their comparison is significant in that the former represents the American expansionist spirit and the latter the spirit of Anti-imperialism and Anti-Anglocentrism. Along with the concept of Manifest Destiny of America, 'American exceptionalism' is also mentioned which motivates U.S. to expand further even after the Spanish-American war in the form of 'informal imperialism' characterized by 'gunboat politics'of the US. These discussions will draw attention to how recent theorists such as Bryce Traister criticizes the Border Theory represented by $Jos{\acute{e}}$ David Saldívar. Here the Border Theory is criticized to repeat the discourse of the globalized capitalism which prefers the weak state and the transnational aspects by focusing on the in-betweenness of the border. In the end the paper will focus on how the Border theory as represented by Saldivar is political enough and sets up a resistant example against American expansionism of today in its focus on the call for pan-American and pluri-versal subjectivity of the borderlands. This point will be supported by a discussion of how Saldivar's view is confirmed by Walter Mignolo who advocates the "bottom up" resistance of the indigenous people of Chiapas and other social forums such as World Social Forum and the Social Forum of the Americas derived from the Zapatistas' movement whose motto is "A World in which many world co-exist."