Three types of indigenization in the development of Korean sociology

Introduction

During Korea’s compressed modernization, sociology has played an important role in academia and society (Jin, 2004). The ideas of socialization, status-role allocation, and structural-functional analysis are widely accepted in explaining the changing attitudes and social relations. Sociological perspectives on urbanization, the nuclear family, organization, and stratification are influential in understanding structural changes usually identified with core elements of modernization.

There has been a strong belief that learning advanced technology and science is inevitable for civilization. At the same time, indigenization is also regarded as necessary for adjusting foreign items to Korean conditions. For Korean intellectuals who experienced a strong Western impact in their colonized situation, the processes of acceptance and indigenization are two sides of the same coin. For example, Kim Kyo-sin, a famous Korean Christian intellectual, published a journal titled Seongseojoseon (Biblical Korea) in 1927. It reveals his creative effort in combining Western Christianity with the Korean way of thinking. In the 1930s, Korean scholars tried to establish Joseonhak (Korean Studies), which interpreted the traditional Korean culture from Western disciplinary perspectives.

The indigenization of sociology can be understood in the same stream. After its national liberation in 1945, Korea accepted liberal democracy, a market economy, individualism, a legal system, and mass education as the bases of the modern state. The acceptance and indigenization of the social sciences were important for implementing these modern elements. For several decades of Korea’s compressed modernization, there has been contested dynamism regarding the proper modes of learning and implementing them (Park and Chang, 1999). Since the contents of knowledge and responses have been continuously changing, it is necessary to understand indigenization as a dialectical process in Korea’s modern intellectual history. In this article, I would like to elaborate on three types of indigenization by focusing on three intellectual efforts in sociology during Korea’s contested modernization.

The issue of relevance in Korean sociology

In Korea, sociology was imported as part of Western knowledge from the late-nineteenth–century to the beginning of the twentieth century. In the 1920s, a sociology course was opened in some junior colleges, and in the 1930s, a few Korean intellectuals got doctoral degrees in sociology in Europe and the United States (Choe J.S). However, it was after national liberation in 1945 that Korean academia could be institutionalized. Due to the national division caused by ideological conflicts and divided rule by the United States–Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Korea separated into two completely different regimes with different institutions.

In South Korea (hereinafter Korea), the American influence was strong in the political arena as well as in academia. When Seoul National University was established as the first national university in 1946, it followed the American university model with various disciplines from the natural sciences to the humanities. Sociology was institutionalized as a department in the College of Humanities and Art. In the 1950s, Lee Man-gap and Lee Hae-young, two professors of sociology in Seoul National University, were sent to the United States by a new academic exchange program designed to give opportunities for learning new streams in the United States. They returned with advanced knowledge on social survey methods and demography. In the 1960s, the government drove its authoritative policy for implementing state-planned economic growth. For catch-up development, the pragmatic use of knowledge was regarded as more important than pure academic values. Sociologists were asked to play some role in resolving increasing social problems such as urban poverty, family restructuring, value change, and unequal allocation. When the Korean Sociological Association (KSA) began to publish its official journal in 1964, the first paper in the first volume was about Confucian values and their relationship to industrialization. The author, Kyung-dong Kim (1983), tried to explain the changing values as a necessary condition for Korea’s development. The first research institute established by sociologists in Seoul National University in 1965 was the Population Research Center. It conducted various studies and campaigns to expand the family planning project for resolving the population problem in Korea (Park, 2004).

The decade of the 1970s was important in problematizing the issue of theoretical relevance. In 1972, the Park Chung-hee regime strengthened its authoritative power in the name of the ‘Korean type of democracy’. Western ideas of human rights and political freedom were criticized as foreign rather than universal, and might be inappropriate to Korean society. It was argued that social scientists should take Korea’s particular situation into consideration in their academic discourses. Not only was the national division and ideological confrontation in the global Cold War regime in the spotlight, but also Korea’s long history as an independent community with Confucian culture. Korean studies in history, literature, and philosophy were supported to figure out Korea’s particularities, which could be a moral foundation for modernization. Social scientists in political science, sociology, and economics began to discuss the ‘indigenization of social sciences’. There was also a stream from below. Young generations educated in Korea wanted to have an autonomous intellectual field free from governmental control and independent from American influence. Sociologists were much more sensitive to the issue of theoretical relevance and academic freedom than in any other discipline. The KSA has continuously held special symposiums on the issue, if not annually. For several decades since then, the issue of indigenization has been discussed from three different approaches.

Universal or particular dichotomy and historical sociology

The issue of academic relevance used to be related to the dichotomy between universalism and particularism in theory and methodology. The first significant response came from those who considered that studies on historical phenomenon might be the way to link universal theory and particular conditions. The historical perspective was regarded as important from the very beginning of Korean sociology. Lee Sang Baek, a founding father of the sociology department of Seoul National University, stressed both August Comte’s positivism and historically sensitive research (Kim, 2002; Park, 2004).

During the 1970s, with political oppression, some sociologists thought that Western sociological theory was inappropriate to explain the Korean situation, mainly due to its ahistorical approach. Structural functionalism, a mainstream of American sociology, was too abstract to be sensitive to historical diversity. Historical sociologists wanted alternative theories that could explain different conditions between advanced and underdeveloped societies. It was believed that the conservative characteristics of Western sociology could be resolved if different conditions could be taken into consideration in theory construction. In 1980, a group was formed in the department of sociology of Seoul National University to study European social histories focusing on path dependence in different historical transitions. It developed into the Hanguksahoesayeonguhoe (Korean Social History Research Society) in 1984 as an independent academic organization pursuing historical sociology in Korea. Yong-ha Shin (1994), a leading figure of the group, wanted to establish historically sensitive sociology to overcome the ahistorical aspects of Western theory. In 1987, the members published a book titled Sahoehakgwasahoesa (Sociology and Social History) in which various approaches of European social historians were introduced. The phenomena of colonialism, nationalism, ideological division, and post-colonial East Asian regionalism began to be seriously discussed in sociological analysis.

The official journal of the association Sahoewayeoksa (Society and History), which began in 1987 with a different title, has played a great role in providing motivation and a field of academic research in historical sociology. Unlike papers by conventional historians and ahistorical sociologists, the journal published papers on modern phenomena that have significant implications for developing new theories and reviewing imported theories. Topics such as the people’s power, state apparatus, marketization, Confucian morality, and Western impacts and value change became good research agendas. Discussions on the contested relations between modernity and coloniality and the dialectics between imperialism and nationalism were common theoretical concerns among the historical sociologists.

In the beginning, the historical approach was identified with studies on Korean experiences. Historical sociology used to be understood as a Koreanized sociology. However, historical sociology does not always mean sociology focusing only on the historical uniqueness of Korea. The historical sociologists aimed at making an alternative theory that could explain various paths in modernization rather than simply focusing on Korean particularism. Thus, the comparative approach was welcomed from the beginning. Comparative studies on Japanese society and Chinese society in East Asia and comparisons between Western experiences and non-Western ones are considered important in elaborating historical sociology. The methodology of the Annal school in France, underdevelopment theory in Latin America, and Wallerstein’s world system theory were some examples for benchmarking.

In a symposium on Korean sociology in 2001, the historical sociologist Kim Pil-dong argued that Korean sociology should go beyond the problematic of indigenization. According to him, the simple dichotomy between universalism and particularism was no longer useful. He argued that theory building is more important than finding uniqueness. He reviewed his research on the traditional Korean organizational pattern of Kye as an example of creative theory building. He explained Korean Kye as a ‘prototype organization’ based on the three principles of individualism, equality, and rationality. He maintained that universality in social theory does not have abstract applicability but is conditionally meaningful in a social context. He also reviewed Japanese social theories based on Japan’s own historical experiences as a good example for the future of historical sociology and sociology in general. Studies on Confucianism from the perspective of non-Western morality and behavior patterns are other examples of such theorization.

Park Myoungkyu’s (2009) approach to conceptual history is another example of the efforts for integrating particularism and universalism in sociology. He explored the semantic differences and similarities between Korean minjok and Japanese minjoku with Western nations. By focusing on various usages in a different socio-historical context, he examined the interrelations and mutual influences that cannot be explained by only one-way translation. The Korean concept of minjok has both universal subjectivity as the French nation did and a particular aspect of collective identity that supported a nationalistic sense of belonging and political resistance against colonial rule. His book Gukmin, Inmin, Simin (People, Nation, and Citizen) examined three interrelated concepts from the perspective of the formation of political subjectivity in modern Korea. It helped to examine global patterns based on a particular national context.

Praxis for social reform and critical sociology

Another relevant response came from sociologists who wanted to establish critical sociology. They focused on the practical role of sociology in politico-economic reforms rather than theoretical relevance in the academic community. During the 1970s and 1980s, various conflicts emerged in Korean society, from the issue of political authoritarianism to that of dependent development based on cheap labor and the international market. Criticism of the state function, unequal allocation, wage exploitation, and underdeveloped civil society were regarded as important concerns of the sociological disputes. Not only authoritative politics, but also the unequal development of Korean capitalism began to be problematized. Regarding the role of the intellectuals, Antonio Gramsci’s concept of praxis-oriented commitment was considered more important than Max Weber’s principle of value neutrality. On campus, the formal curriculum based on the Western university system had to struggle with the hidden curricula voluntarily formed by the dissident student activists.

American sociology, and structural functionalism, in particular, was criticized for its conservativeness, which regards social order more important than social conflicts. The book Minjunggwajisikin (Grassroots and Intellectuals) written by Wan-Sang Han (1984), a sociologist who was expelled from Seoul National University by the government, began to be influential among dissident people and young students. Han (1984) argued that intellectuals, sociologists, in particular, should play active roles for the interests of the grassroots rather than providing legitimacy for the ruling class. For a while, various theories of the Frankfurt School, political liberalism, and even liberation theology in Latin America were welcomed as intellectual resources to support the struggle with the status quo. Gradually, Marxism was regarded as the very theory to provide proper knowledge for criticizing hidden structural contradictions.

Marxism was strictly forbidden in Korea for several decades, even in academia. During the military regime of Chun Doo-hwan, university campuses became experimental spaces to search for alternative ideas and movements. After the victory of the democratization movement in 1987, Marxism was rapidly accepted by dissenting students as an alternative theory for social reformation. The emerging labor unions also accepted the Marxist paradigm to criticize the nation’s oppressive labor regime and to legitimatize the struggle for class interests. After the socialist bloc collapsed in the beginning of the 1990s, liberal democracy and global capitalism seemed to be universal standards in the world. In Korea, however, Marxism could enjoy its strong power on campus and in labor unions. Despite the mismatch between the global stream and Korean situation regarding the relevance of Marxism, there was a strong affinity between the outbreaks of people’s power, that of the working class in particular, and the Marxist paradigm for a while.

In 1986, Hanguksaneopsahoeyeonguhoe (the Korea Industrial Society Research Association) was established by a precedent study group of progressive students under the leadership of Jin-Kyun Kim (1986), a progressive sociologist from Seoul National University. In a short time, it became an important platform on which various critical intellectual movements developed. Members of the association accepted Marxist perspectives, orthodox or flexible, for explaining unequal development and dependency in the world capitalist system. The journal Gyeongjewasahoe (Economy and Society), the formal periodical of the institute, became an influential infrastructure on which many critical analyses and disputes were shared. Sociology was regarded as the best discipline for developing critical knowledge because it allowed much more freedom in theory and methodology compared with other academic disciplines. As a result, they used to have a different identity from the institutionalized sociology in academia. Seo Gwan-mo, a leading figure of the group, confessed that he had a little identity as an academic sociologist even though he has been a professor in the sociology department (Seo and Baek, 2018). During the period of conflict and protest in the 1990s, critical sociology and its collective activities were a hub of the progressive movements in society and academia.

Although multidisciplinary academic cooperation was still regarded as important, the association strengthened its identity in the field of Korean sociology. In 1996, the institute changed its research focus from ‘industrial society’ to ‘industrial sociology’. In 2007, it changed its name again to the Bipansaheohakhoe (Critical Sociology Association). In addition to Marxist theories, various perspectives such as feminism, new social movements, cultural studies, post-colonialism, and new materialism were accepted for producing critical discourses on contemporary phenomena. The Association used to have its own academic activities such as an annual symposium, special seminars, and research projects separately from that of the KSA. It provided an intellectual platform on which scholars, labor unions, civil activists, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) could share some goals for social movements. Leading sociologists in critical sociology could play significant roles in Korean politics by empowering civil groups and progressive parties.

Comprehensive indigenization of public sociology and theoretical sociology in a new situation

With the deepening global industrialization and democratization, Korean sociology faces new situations on campus as well as in society. Korean society is becoming more liberal, competitive, market-based, diverse, and unstable. After the economic crisis and following huge suffering in 1997 and 1998, the possibility of layoffs and the vulnerability of the social protection system pushed people to be more sensitive to job security and individual concerns for market capacity. Even young students preferred pragmatic knowledge, which was likely to provide good job opportunities. Also, the collective behavior of the civil sector was displaced by legal measures in resolving conflicts. NGOs equipped with professional knowledge and full-time experts became independent agencies for the civil sector.

Korean academic fields also changed. The Korea Research Foundation (KRF), a public organization for enhancing research and development (R&D), tried to standardize the reputation system and research procedures in academia. With a huge amount of funds and the slogan of the global standard, the KRF played a decisive role in changing the habitus in Korean academia. Scholars were expected to be more competitive in paper production and adjust to a formal research format. Peer evaluation by academic professionals became much more important than feedback from civil society. Rather than critical discourses for the public, analytical work with elaborate methodologies were stressed. Another significant change is occurring on the campuses. As students become more concerned about their interests and future job opportunities, universities are becoming places for preparing human capital for their future careers. Classes on marketing, identity, technology, networking, taste, and emotion are more popular than serious criticism of the status quo. Sociology is now also expected to provide enough professional knowledge to enhance human capital and problem-solving capacity. University authorities are trying to restructure departments to adjust to such a change in the name of university reform. Sociology’s strong relationship with the civil sector is no longer a merit to students who want to learn professional knowledge for higher marketability. In general, Korean sociology is facing a period of crisis with decreasing numbers of students and weakening popularity among society.

The idea of public sociology is a new version of the indigenization effort of Korean sociology in this dilemmatic situation. In 2009, the KSA held its annual conference with the title ‘The Prospects of Public Sociology’. The term public sociology was introduced in the presidential address of the American Sociological Association in 2004. Michael Burawoy argued that ‘as mirror and conscience of society, sociology must define, promote, and inform public debate about deepening class and racial inequalities, new gender regimes, environmental degradation, market fundamentalism, state, and non-state violence’. According to him, ‘public sociology – sociology that transcends the academy – is needed more than ever’ (M. Burawoy). The idea of public sociology was familiar to Korean sociologists, who have stressed close relations with the civil sector. In 2012, the Hangukgonggongsahoehakhoe (Korean Association of Public Sociology) was established with the slogan ‘Civil Academic Association’. Lim Hyunjin, a leading scholar of the organization, argued that academia should have closer relations with the civil sector and NGOs to pursue publicness. Various social movements for the public good, social values, shared economy, community building, and minority movements are considered proper fields where sociologists do their work.

There is another response to the crisis of sociology. Sahoeironhakhoe (Korean Society for Social Theory), established in 2001, focuses on the deep understanding and creative elaboration of sociological theory. Differing from previous indigenization efforts, it argued that sociology should be much more theory oriented regardless of its origin and functions. Kim Sung-guk argued that Western theories should be carefully restructured rather than simply denied or welcomed. Accommodation of global theories is not a simple import of a ready-made commodity, but a sort of creative translation. Kyung-man Kim (2011, 2015) maintains that academic autonomy comes from logical expertise and the cognitive elegance of theory. According to him, public sociology will likely result in the amateurism of sociology which cannot secure the intellectual authority and collective identity of sociology. The journal Sahoewairon (Society and Theory) provides an intellectual platform on which various social theories from around the world can be reviewed and disputed. Scholars, resources, methods, and concepts from nations worldwide are examined to develop more appropriate sociological theories. For example, Kim Hong-Jung provides new theoretical concepts for contemporary Korean society such as survivalism, snovism, melancholy, dream capital, and mind regime. Some scholars try to elaborate alternative concepts and theories from the various experiences of Korea. Confucian ethics, intimacy, social relations, networking, social bonds, risk management, different rationality, materialism, and ways of imagination are elaborated as resources of Korean sociology.

Generally speaking, the indigenization of the twenty-first century is no longer understood as a nationalistic project against universal theory or pragmatic activism against academic neutrality. It has become a comprehensive reflexivity as a continuous task to build an intellectual knowledge that can explain Korea’s historical paths, structural problems, and possible future. It is widely accepted that the proper way of Korean sociology is not repeating the slogan of indigenization, but a comprehensive approach for creatively integrating theoretical perspectives and socio-historical realities. There are continuous disputes regarding the usefulness of the goal of indigenization in Korean sociology, and creative tensions in academia are good examples of today’s efforts for indigenization in Korean sociology.

Conclusion

For comprehensive indigenization, two aspects should be taken into consideration. The first is the structural changes in knowledge production in the twenty-first century. Modern universities and the academic division of various disciplines have played a critical role in producing knowledge. However, the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the advent of the Internet information society have significantly changed the institutional basis of the knowledge production system. A new infrastructure for the distribution and consumption of knowledge is continuously emerging outside the university system. The boundary between academia and non-academic is rapidly blurring and types of knowledge are also changing. Future Korean sociology can develop only when an attitude of reflection and creative response continues in academia.

Second, it is necessary to have a new sensitivity to the twenty-first–century transformation, which used to be discussed with the ideas of postmodernity, mobile society, globalism, and risk society. While unbalanced interrelations among traditional, modern, and postmodern coexist everywhere, new characteristics of fluidity, liquidity, and uncertainty are rapidly growing. Digital technology brings about a revolutionary change in everyday life as well as organizational relations. There is a need for academic efforts to be more sensitive to be close to the realities of technological innovations, which results in new opportunities and risks in society.

Three types of indigenization during the contested development of Korean sociology show different approaches, strategies, and efforts with their own research concerns and academic activities. Although the simple dichotomy between Western universalism and Korean particularism is no longer presumed, intellectual efforts for indigenization remain as an ongoing issue in Korean sociology. Those efforts could provide good resources for elaborating future developments in Korean sociology as well as sociologies in East Asia and in the global community.