This essay aims to provide a critical view of South Korean intellectuals and unification policy makers who stress the undisputed role of nationalism, across the diverse ideo-logical spectrums, in constructing ‘inter-Korea’ reconciliation in South Korean society. They contend that meanings of counter-hegemonic practice against anti-North Korean ideology are already determined within the politics of national identification. However, this mode of thinking remains a predicament of the South Korean public’s critical engagement with the way in which a moral claim to national identification is conflated with inter-Korea economic collaboration along the lines of neo-liberalism. But I also want to illuminate the connection that neo-liberalism and new conservatism in South Korea make in the attempt to help anti-North Koreanism survive democratic challenges. My critical evaluation of the connection suggests a discursive condition of what I call ‘inter-Korea sociability’, in which the South Korean public can appropriate social and historical claims about the inter-Korea relationship that range from the atrocious and violent events in the war to the so-called North Korean human rights crisis. I argue that two Koreas’ reconciliation can come through resisting the romanticization of Koreans’ own normative commitment to idealized national authenticity and liberal human rights.
목차
ABSTRACT RECONCILIATION AS A COMMITMENT TO CRITICAL ANALYSIS FROM WITHIN US TWO CRITICAL DIMENSIONS OF 'INTER-KOREA' TOWARD A POSSIBILITY OF INTER-KOREA SOCIABILITY (1) The Otherizing of North Koreans (2) Reconciliation in the North Korean Human Rights Crisis CONCLUDING REMARKS REFERENCES
키워드
National ReconciliationNorth KoreaNationalismOtherizationHuman Rights
한국연구원은 1970년 5월 한국 민속의 각 분야에 걸친 자료의 수집과 학술적 연구를 목적으로 '한국민속연구소'로 출발하였다. 그 후 1973년 5월 연구 분야를 확대하며 민속뿐만 아니라 한국학 전반에 걸친 연구를 위해 '한국학연구소'로 개편하였고, 다시 1989년 3월 한국의 국제적 위상의 부상과 함께 한국학 연구의 중요성이 높아짐에 따라 '한국학연구원'으로 확대, 개편하였다. 한국학연구원은 한국학 전반에 걸친 연구를 통해 지역과 민족문화 발전에 기여하며 한국학의 세계화를 위해서 학술활동을 강화하고 나아가 내·외국인에 대한 한국문화 교육을 담당하고자 한다.