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KOREAN STUDIES REVIEW
Korea and Globalization: Politics, Economics, Culture, edited by James Lewis and Amadu Sesay. New York and London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002. (ISBN 0-7007-1512-6, 69.95 US$, cloth)
reviewed by Ruediger Frank
Columbia University[This review first appeared in Acta Koreana, 6.2 (July 2003): 158-160. Acta Koreana is published by Academia Koreana of Keimyung University.]
I have to admit that, when I first looked closer at the book and the profiles of the authors, I wondered if its title and subject were well chosen. Among the nine contributors, there is no economist and just three political scientists; concerning nationality, there are only three South Korean writers plus one from the United States—this means that the usual suspects for a volume on Korean globalization are clearly underrepresented. But after looking closer and reading my way through the book, I found it to be a refreshing and in fact very insightful, thought-provoking alternative of high academic quality to mainstream studies on the subject, even though there is no female contributor. The latter would have further added to what is the major strength of the project, namely, its multi-dimensional focus.
This volume is explicitly about globalization and whatever is perceived as such, and not for or against it. In his preface, Koo Bom-Mo, a professor of Political Science from the Academy of Korean Studies in Seoul, points at the inevitability of globalization tendencies in the current world with all its various instances of easy interaction among remote places. He emphasizes the necessity to regard this process as a multifaceted matter which is not free of conflicts and disjunctures. Regarding the development of South Korea in the last few decades, he urges us to approach this phenomenon in all its diversity and complexity: “Only with inter- and multidisciplinary approaches can we reach a concrete understanding of Korean society in the period of globalization.” (p. ix) This paradigm sets the tone for the rest of the book.
The introduction by James Lewis, director of the Korean Studies program at Oxford, reflects on the extraordinary nature of the project and the unusual composition of the contributions. A hot summer at the Academy of Korean Studies in Sŏngnam, south of Seoul, was the environment in which the idea for the project was born. It builds on three strengths, which Lewis describes as (1) a truly global authorship, (2) the very high reputation of the contributors, although not necessarily among speakers of English, and (3) the fact that “the collection is not completely social scientific nor strictly humanistic: it is multi-disciplinary and historically contextual . . . the essays seek to explain Korea in holistic terms, as a people with culture, politics and economic concerns in the world.” (p. 3)
Yi Jeong Duk is a South Korean anthropologist. He writes on “Globalization and Recent Changes to Daily Life in the Republic of Korea.” After some introductory remarks on the history of globalization in Korea, he analyzes its effects on the workplace, consumption and leisure time as well as efforts to preserve Korean cultural identity.
Yin Bao Yun is a Chinese specialist on labor relations. His contribution is on “Labor, Capital and the Globalization of the Korean Economy.” He looks at the legacies and the background of Korean capitalism, the rise of the bourgeoisie since the mid 1960s and the subsequent reaction of labor, before in the late 1980s a new stage was reached that required different approaches from all strata of society.
Nahzeem Oluwafemi Mimiko is a Nigerian Political Economist. In his article “From Insularity to segyehwa: The Political Economy of Globalization in Korea,” he pinpoints the relative isolation of Korean society before the 1990s and its rapid transformation thereafter as one of the most striking characteristics. He explores some economic and meta-economic bases for globalization in Korea, before reflecting on the implications of this new trend for state and society.
Jin Jing Yi is a Chinese specialist on the history and culture of the Korean minority in China. He writes on “Commonalities and Differences between the Cultures of North and South Korea and the Unification of the Peninsula.” He points out that the most important difference between North and South Korea lies in values, even though they rest on top of a common culture. He describes these dissimilarities and suggests using the commonalities as a way to integrate the now different value systems in both parts of Korea.
James Lewis is an American historian of Korean relations with Japan. His contribution is titled “The Japan That Does Not Exist and The Ugly Kingdom: An Essay on the History of Korean-Japanese Relations and Their Contemporary Images of Each Other.” It reflects on the very special position that both countries occupy vis-à-vis each other, regarding this relationship as a litmus test: “South Korean globalization begins with the way it deals with Japan.” (p. 148) He starts with a summary of the long and complicated history of bilateral relations, followed by a detailed analysis of the changes in the year 1998. In the final part, Lewis undertakes a very sophisticated study of popular and fascinating but also highly controversial books about the bilateral relationship, deliberately picking some extreme cases.
Kim Jong-myung is a Korean expert on Buddhist history and philosophy. In his article, “The Tripitaka Koreana: Its Computerization and Significance for the Cultural Sciences in a Modern Globalized World,” he provides a history of the Korean version of this 48 volume Buddhist text and explains its significance. He points at the particularities of the electronic input of such a text and highlights some passages that are not included in the Japanese equivalent.
Alexander Fedotoff is a Bulgarian specialist on the literature and culture of Altaic peoples. He writes on “The Re-Globalization of Korean Literature,” emphasizing the “extremely complex and polyphonic” (p. 182) literary situation in South Korea. He starts with a brief history of Korea from the perspective of its literary achievements and subsequent influences. He further pinpoints the dangers of a misunderstood internationalization of modern Korean literature and makes suggestions for a successful entry of Korean literary products to the international scene.
Amadu Sesay is a professor of International Relations in Nigeria. He authored the final contribution of the volume, titled “In the Global Arena: Korea, the United Nations, and Peace-keeping Operation.” He describes the role of the UN and the reasons for Korea’s late entry in 1991, as well as Korea’s role within the UN, focusing on peace-keeping and peace-building operations. He analyses the goals, the beneficiaries and the future prospects of (South) Korea’s respective actions.
It is impossible to cover all the various aspects of globalization in one volume; however, this book not only presents a number of highly interesting pieces of the puzzle, it also helps us to understand what a complex and multi-faceted matter the otherwise predominantly economically seen phenomenon of globalization really is. The diversity of the fields covered and the very different backgrounds of the authors are certainly the major strengths of the book. In addition, since most of the authors quote a number of definitions for the term ‘globalization’ at the beginning of their articles, there is a certain potential for supporting the reader’s theoretical studies on the more universal aspects of globalization itself.
There is, however, a standard sentence that I seem to have to add to each review of a RoutledgeCurzon publication: The book is somewhat pricey, and especially budget-minded students might want to wait for a paperback edition or never buy it at all, hoping that their libraries will acquire it quickly. Nevertheless, in combination with a volume exclusively focusing on globalization, plus one on Korea’s cultural tradition and another one on the country’s development in the last few decades, Korea and Globalization would serve well as a textbook for graduate students.
Citation:
Frank, Ruediger 2006
Review of Korea and Globalization: Politics, Economics, Culture , edited by James Lewis and Amadu Sesay (2002)
Korean Studies Review 2006, no. 03
Electronic file: http://koreaweb.ws/ks/ksr/ksr06-03.htm