Militarized Modernity And Gendered Citizenship In South Korea

This pathbreaking study presents a feminist analysis of the politics of membership in the South Korean nation over the past four decades. Seungsook Moon examines the ambitious effort by which South Korea transformed itself into a modern industrial and militarized nation. She demonstrates that the pursuit of modernity in South Korea involved the construction of the anticommunist national identity and a massive effort to mold the populace into useful, docile members of the state. This process, which she terms “militarized modernity,” treated men and women differently. Men were mobilized for mandatory military service and then, as conscripts, utilized as workers and researchers in the industrializing economy. Women were consigned to lesser factory jobs, and their roles as members of the modern nation were defined largely in terms of biological reproduction and household management. Moon situates militarized modernity in the historical context of colonialism and nationalism in the twentieth century. She follows the course of militarized modernity in South Korea from its development in the early 1960s through its peak in the 1970s and its decline after rule by military dictatorship ceased in 1987. She highlights the crucial role of the Cold War in South Korea’s militarization and the continuities in the disciplinary tactics used by the Japanese colonial rulers and the postcolonial military regimes. Moon reveals how, in the years since 1987, various social movements—particularly the women’s and labor movements—began the still-ongoing process of revitalizing South Korean civil society and forging citizenship as a new form of membership in the democratizing nation.

"The contributors to this volume offer an explicitly intersectional and transnational perspective on contemporary South Korean gender and class relations and structures"--

"After the transition from military rule to procedural democracy through popular movements, South Korea actively embraced globalization in 1990s under its Civilian Government (munmin jæongbu: 1993-1997). By rapidly adopting a neoliberal strategy of deregulation and privatization, the government promoted its localized project of Segyehwa (globalization) as the source of more prosperity and recognition for the country. This euphoria was followed by two major economic crises; the Asian Financial Crisis (1997-1998) and the Global Financial Crisis (2008- 2009) that exposed South Korea to the "shock doctrine" of neoliberal restructuring, dictated by the global trinity of economic institutions, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB), and the World Trade Organization (WTO) and further subjected it to neoliberal governmentality. It was in this that "citizens' organizations" (simindanch'e) emerged and spread in South Korea as the vehicle for democratic social change. Why and how does civic activism that is consciously oriented toward democratization resist and accept neoliberalism? How and to what extent does neoliberalism enable such activism and simultaneously undermine it? Between Democracy and Neoliberalism examines the relationship between the two modern concepts from the vantage point of civic activism in South Korea. In order to demonstrate a contradictory relationship between the two, Seungsook Moon follows the trajectories of activism interacting with globalization in South Korea, which has profoundly transformed it since the 1990s. Comparatively speaking, civic activism pursued by "progressive" citizens' organizations can be seen as a Korean version of social movement, critically responding to neoliberal globalization and yearning for an alternative world order. However, such resistant activism is more complex than one-dimensional opposition and protest to neoliberalism. In the face of persistent and resilient neoliberalism even after the global financial crisis, this book explores how civic activism can shed light on the theoretical discussion of the complex and evolving relationship between democracy and neoliberalism through the South Korean case"--

Dangerous Women addresses the themes of Korean nationalism and gender construction, as well as various issues related to the colonialization and decolonialization of the Korean nation. The contributors explore the troubled category of "woman," placing it in the specific context of a marginalized and colonized nation. But Korean women are not merely configured here as metaphors for an emasculated and infantilized "homeland;" they are also shown to be products of a problematic gender construction that originates in Korea, and extends even today to Korean communities beyond Asia. Representations of Korean women still attempt to confine them to the status of either mother or prostitute: Dangerous Women rectifies that construction, offering a feminist intervention that might recuperate womanhood.

A collection of essays exploring the world-wide U.S. military base system and its interplay with social relations of gender and sexuality in the U.S. and foreign host nations.

What happens to a society that has too many men? In this provocative book, Valerie Hudson and Andrea den Boer argue that, historically, high male-to-female ratios often trigger domestic and international violence. Most violent crime is committed by young unmarried males who lack stable social bonds. Although there is not always a direct cause-and-effect relationship, these surplus men often play a crucial role in making violence prevalent within society. Governments sometimes respond to this problem by enlisting young surplus males in military campaigns and high-risk public works projects. Countries with high male-to-female ratios also tend to develop authoritarian political systems. Hudson and den Boer suggest that the sex ratios of many Asian countries, particularly China and India—which represent almost 40 percent of the world's population—are being skewed in favor of males on a scale that may be unprecedented in human history. Through offspring sex selection (often in the form of sex-selective abortion and female infanticide), these countries are acquiring a disproportionate number of low-status young adult males, called "bare branches" by the Chinese. Hudson and den Boer argue that this surplus male population in Asia's largest countries threatens domestic stability and international security. The prospects for peace and democracy are dimmed by the growth of bare branches in China and India, and, they maintain, the sex ratios of these countries will have global implications in the twenty-first century.

Despite the significance of Korea in world Christianity and the crucial role Christianity plays in contemporary Korean religious life, the tradition has been little studied in the West. Christianity in Korea seeks to fill this lacuna by providing a wide-ranging overview of the growth and development of Korean Christianity and the implications that development has had for Korean politics, interreligious dialogue, and gender and social issues. The volume begins with an accessibly written overview that traces in broad outline the history and development of Christianity on the peninsula. This is followed by chapters on broad themes, such as the survival of early Korean Catholics in a Neo-Confucian society, relations between Christian churches and colonial authorities during the Japanese occupation, premillennialism, and the theological significance of the division and prospective reunification of Korea. Others look in more detail at individuals and movements, including the story of the female martyr Kollumba Kang Wansuk; the influence of Presbyterianism on the renowned nationalist Ahn Changho; the sociopolitical and theological background of the Minjung Protestant Movement; and the success and challenges of Evangelical Protestantism in Korea. The book concludes with a discussion of how best to encourage a rapprochement between Buddhism and Christianity in Korea.