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Sandra Fahy, Marching Through Suffering: Loss and Survival in North Korea. New York: Columbia University Press, 2015. 272 pp. $40 (cloth/e-book). Hazel Smith, North Korea: Markets and Military Rule. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,... more
Sandra Fahy, Marching Through Suffering: Loss and Survival in North Korea. New York: Columbia University Press, 2015. 272 pp. $40 (cloth/e-book). Hazel Smith, North Korea: Markets and Military Rule. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. 394 pp. $90 (cloth), $33 (paper), $26 (e-book). Lady Caroline Lamb famously called Lord Byron "mad, bad, and dangerous to know." In describing North Korea, Hazel Smith replaces "dangerous to know" with "sad," but she, like Sandra Fahy, seeks to recuperate the ultimate humanity of North Koreans. Both Smith and Fahy have spent considerable time in North Korea or with North Koreans, and they convey the contemporary dynamics of North Korea without relying on the ready-made caricatures and stereotypes that dominate in the West (and the rest)...
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... As Franz Kafka's (1994:225) diary entry of 8 January 1914 records: "What do I have in common with Jews? ... to personal identityanalyzing the sense of self one has or... more
... As Franz Kafka's (1994:225) diary entry of 8 January 1914 records: "What do I have in common with Jews? ... to personal identityanalyzing the sense of self one has or the kind of person one isPeter Strawson (1959:113) resolves the contradic-tion between personal identity ...
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The neoclassical concept of the market dominates economic discourse. Being resistant to the reality of historical transformations and power relations, it fails to capture the diversity of social organizations of exchange. I suggested... more
The neoclassical concept of the market dominates economic discourse. Being resistant to the reality of historical transformations and power relations, it fails to capture the diversity of social organizations of exchange. I suggested instead the concept of mode of exchange to make sense of social organizations of exchange. Stressing the salience of social relations and power struggles, it also seeks to incorporate technology and other constraints in making sense of exchange activities.
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The post–World War II growth of area studies, and Asian studies in particular, posed a serious challenge to the mainstream social sciences. Yet the epistemic and institutional foundations of area studies were never well articulated or... more
The post–World War II growth of area studies, and Asian studies in particular, posed a serious challenge to the mainstream social sciences. Yet the epistemic and institutional foundations of area studies were never well articulated or justified, and the post–Cold War years brought a pervasive sense of crisis to its intellectual mission and justification. In particular, the author focuses on the tensions, if not contradictions, between social science disciplines and area studies. In advocating a more integrated human science, which depends more on mobile networks of scholars than on fixed fields of discipline-bound professors, the author suggests global studies as a fitting field of inquiry in the age of globalization. Introduction The field upon which one strides is perforce self-evident and self-explanatory. Bizarre would be a person who examines the solid ground, who hesitates to take the next step. More troublingly, reflections on a field of study smack of irrelevance, something ...
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In the early 2010`s, the expansion of South Korean popular culture around the world is led by popular music, usually known as Kpop. In this paper I seek to answer two questions. First, what are the sources of its success beyond the South... more
In the early 2010`s, the expansion of South Korean popular culture around the world is led by popular music, usually known as Kpop. In this paper I seek to answer two questions. First, what are the sources of its success beyond the South Korean national border? Secondly, what does it say about contemporary South Korean society and culture?
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South Korea has shifted from a relatively well-educated but poorly remunerated workforce to a highly skilled and compensated one in high-value-added industries. This paper analyzes the South Korean government’s science and technology... more
South Korea has shifted from a relatively well-educated but poorly remunerated workforce to a highly skilled and compensated one in high-value-added industries. This paper analyzes the South Korean government’s science and technology policy and the supply of scientists and engineers in emerging industries. We note a potential shortfall of skilled talent in the near future.
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The social sciences developed in Europe and the United States in the nineteenth century and therefore reflect the prevailing scientific philosophy of the place and the time. This paper argues that the social sciences in the twenty-first... more
The social sciences developed in Europe and the United States in the nineteenth century and therefore reflect the prevailing scientific philosophy of the place and the time. This paper argues that the social sciences in the twenty-first century need to take seriously the constancy of change (rather than assuming order), the salience of transnational and global relations and institutions (rather than focusing on the national), and the crucial role of reflexivity (rather than presuming causal determinism). Contemporary social scientists need to close the systematic gap between past theories and contemporary reality. The paper draws on some concrete examples from South Korea, especially in the realm of risk and reflexivity.
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In the 2010s, the world is seemingly awash with waves of populism and anti-immigration movements. Yet virtually all discussions, owing to the prevailing Eurocentric perspective, bypass East Asia (more accurately, Northeast Asia) and the... more
In the 2010s, the world is seemingly awash with waves of populism and anti-immigration movements. Yet virtually all discussions, owing to the prevailing Eurocentric perspective, bypass East Asia (more accurately, Northeast Asia) and the absence of strong populist or anti-immigration discourses or politics. This chapter presents a comparative and historical account of East Asian exceptionalism in the matter of migration crisis, especially given the West’s embrace of an insider-outsider dichotomy superseding the class- and nation-based divisions of the post–World War II era. The chapter also discusses some nascent articulations of Western-style populist discourses in Northeast Asia, and concludes with the potential for migration crisis in the region.
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Abstract In contemporary discussions of business ethics in particular and political economy in general, three important factors are often given short shrift: history, power and critique. Present-oriented studies that elide the place of... more
Abstract In contemporary discussions of business ethics in particular and political economy in general, three important factors are often given short shrift: history, power and critique. Present-oriented studies that elide the place of power and the role of critique risk becoming ideological justifications for the status quo.
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Well we know where we're goin'But we don't know where we've been And we know what we're knowin'But we can't say what we've seen And we're not little children And we know what we want Give us time to... more
Well we know where we're goin'But we don't know where we've been And we know what we're knowin'But we can't say what we've seen And we're not little children And we know what we want Give us time to work it out.—Talking Heads1
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The ideology of monoethnic Japan dominated the post-World War II discourses on Japan. While prewar Japan was clearly multiethnic—the Japanese empire reached well beyond the traditional ambit of the Japanese nation and there was a... more
The ideology of monoethnic Japan dominated the post-World War II discourses on Japan. While prewar Japan was clearly multiethnic—the Japanese empire reached well beyond the traditional ambit of the Japanese nation and there was a considerable influx of colonial migrants into the main Japanese islands—the postwar period provided a misleading portrait of Japan as an ethnically homogeneous society, owing in no small part to the silence of actually exiting minority groups. The idea of multiethnic Japan counters the long regnant monoethnic ideology, stressing that Japan has been and remains an ethnically heterogeneous society. Keywords: ideology; Japan; multiculturalism; nationalism
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Karl Polanyi remains one of the most trenchant critics of neoclassical economics. His “embeddedness” thesis, which holds that all economic activities and institutions are enmeshed in social relations and institutions, offers a sound... more
Karl Polanyi remains one of the most trenchant critics of neoclassical economics. His “embeddedness” thesis, which holds that all economic activities and institutions are enmeshed in social relations and institutions, offers a sound theoretical basis for economic sociology. Nonetheless, he fails to embed the market concept. This theoretical lacuna manifests itself in his classic account of the rise of market society in England, The Great Transformation ([1944] 1957), where he neglects to consider institutional diversity and discontinuities in English commercial development. Polanyi's embeddedness thesis can be taken to its logical conclusion; that is, even the market can be embedded. “Markets” can be treated as social networks or organizations constituted by traders. I offer as an empirical illustration a brief case study of the rise of “market society” in England.
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The making of modern Korea in the turbulent 20th century unleashed massive migrations. In 2010 ethnic Koreans living outside of North and South Korea (usually called kyop’o or tongp’o in Korean) is estimated to number 7 million (the... more
The making of modern Korea in the turbulent 20th century unleashed massive migrations. In 2010 ethnic Koreans living outside of North and South Korea (usually called kyop’o or tongp’o in Korean) is estimated to number 7 million (the combined population of the two Koreas is roughly 70 million). The top three countries – China (2.5 million), US (2 million), Japan (900,000) – account for three-quarters of the Korean diaspora, followed by Canada (220,000), Russia (220,000), Uzbekistan (175,000), Australia (125,000), the Philippines (115,000), Kazakhstan (100,000), Vietnam (85,000), and Brazil (48,000) (KIS 2010; MOFAT 2010). Long a sender country, South, though not North, Korea may become a multiethnic society; the number of non-ethnic Koreans in South Korea exceeded one million by 2010. Keywords: Asia; imperialism; war; colonialism; labor supply
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... For an intellectual background, see Ishida Takeshi, Nikon no Shakai Kagaku (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1984), chaps. ... Sec inter alia Kamata Satoshi, Nihon no Heiki Kojo (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1983); Reinhard Drifte, Arms... more
... For an intellectual background, see Ishida Takeshi, Nikon no Shakai Kagaku (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1984), chaps. ... Sec inter alia Kamata Satoshi, Nihon no Heiki Kojo (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1983); Reinhard Drifte, Arms Production in Japan: The Military Applications of ...
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Page 1. EAST ASIA & PACIFIC REGION SERIES World Bank Discussion Papers Korean Industrial Policy Legacies of the Past and Directions for the Future Danny M. Leipziger Peter A. Petri Page 2. Recent World Bank Discussion Papers No. ...
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Hurricane Katrina was a horrible tragedy. Rather than reprising the obvious pitfalls of governmental response or the dire consequences of social inequalities, however, I pose a series of questions. In particular, I seek to highlight the... more
Hurricane Katrina was a horrible tragedy. Rather than reprising the obvious pitfalls of governmental response or the dire consequences of social inequalities, however, I pose a series of questions. In particular, I seek to highlight the blind spots and silences that the media frenzy generated. These range from the fate of the Native Americans and the complexity of New Orleans' racial history to the explanatory adequacy of the dominant narrative and the unreflective premise of the reconstruction effort. The precarious state of nature and civilization demands a way to think and act beyond short-term palliatives.
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In 1986 Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro declared," Japan has one ethnicity (minzoku), one state (kokka), and one language (gengo)"(Terazawa 1990: 64-65). In his ethnic allegory, ethnic and cultural homogeneity contributed to... more
In 1986 Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro declared," Japan has one ethnicity (minzoku), one state (kokka), and one language (gengo)"(Terazawa 1990: 64-65). In his ethnic allegory, ethnic and cultural homogeneity contributed to Japan's economic efflorescence, ...