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SPECIAL SECTION: GLOBALIZATION AND KOREAN SOCIETY Introduction Globalization and Transformation in Contemporary Korean Society Michael Robinson Four articles in this issue are the product of a special seminar titled "Globalization and Korean Society," held in summer 2005. They represent an effort to grapple with how this oft-invoked phenomenon actually plays out in contemporary South Korea—to capture, in other words, lived experiences ofglobalization. Accordingly, these articles attend not only to the blunt force of global influences on Korean society generally, but also to the more subtle responses ofvarious Korean stakeholders, such as the state, mass media, and civil-society groups. All four articles focus on what might be called globalnational -local interactions—as manifested in the marketing and commodification of traditional Korean cultural forms during the 2002 World Cup (Kyoim Yun); the constitutive effects of global and national media on the crowd phenomena during the same World Cup summer (Rachael Miyung Joo); the politics of the "scientization" of Korean medicine (Jongyoung Kim); and, finally, the evolution of the postliberation movement to change Korean family law (Ki-young Shin). A catchphrase ofthe late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, globalization connotes worldwide flows ofpeople, products, capital, ideas, and other resources across national boundaries. Though in operation for centuries, such flows have intensified in recent decades with the breakdown of political barriers to trade and travel, as well as impressive technological breakthroughs such as satellite communications and the Internet. Korea has certainly been involved in these globalizing processes for at least the past one hundred years. The intrusion of global capitalism in the late nineteenth century, Japanese colonialism (1910-1945), the occupation by Cold War superpowers (19451948 ), and since the 1960s the dramatic economic growth in the southern halfofthe peninsula have brought waves ofeconomic, political, and culturalideational influences to bear on Korea. Throughout this tumultuous process, The Journal ofKorean Studies U, no. 1 (Fall 2006): 3-6 3 4 Michael Robinson Korea has struggled to create and maintain local identities while absorbing myriad forces from abroad. Korea's experience of globalization has typically been rendered in all too familiar and generic terms: as a dichotomous face-off between global and national forces, wherein the dominant "core" (Western capitalist economies and perhaps Japan) exercises agency, imposing globalizing dictates on hapless "peripheries" (everyone else) left with few options but vain "resistance" and eventual capitulation. To be sure, such a perspective is not entirely invalid, especially if one focuses on state-level responses to globalization. The South Korean state's stance toward global influences has been fraught with tensions. Claiming to protect Korean political, economic, and cultural autonomy, its policies sometimes seemed to lead to the very opposite. The post-1960 "developmental state" is often credited with freeing South Korea from dependency on U.S. economic aid and making it an important player in global capitalism. Yet to play in this arena has also meant exposing Korea to external forces, which by the mid-1980s brought increasing pressures to open its markets to global capital, foreign manufacturers, Hollywood movies, and so forth. With respect to cultural identity, the state has promoted "modernization " and "internationalization" while struggling, usually unsuccessfully, to exclude those influences deemed deleterious to the formation of a unique and unitary Korean essence. These renderings of global-national interactions , where the state signifies the national, are undoubtedly meaningful and deserving ofstudy. However, it cannot be assumed that they represent Korean experiences with globalization at the local level. The papers presented here attempt to capture how globalization plays out inside specific local movements within Korean society. These reveal a complex process of multiple interactions. Indeed, the global versus national struggle plays differently at the subnational or local level. Globalization creates multiple responses within any national realm. The national is local vis-àvis global forces, but becomes an intermediate player when in dialogue with subnational actors. For example, as discussed in Kyoim Yun's paper, Cheju provincial officials planned to market the province and expand tourism by staging cultural festivals for a global gaze during the 2002 World Cup. State interests in displaying the nation via the World Cup stimulated provincial officials to market Cheju not only to a global audience, but also to augment...

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