Colonial Modernity in Korea | Korea Institute

Colonial Modernity in Korea | Korea Institute



Colonial Modernity in Korea

Citation:
Shin G-W, Robinson M ed. Colonial Modernity in Korea. 

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center; 2001 pp. 496.
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The twelve chapters in this volume seek to overcome the nationalist paradigm of Japanese repression and exploitation versus Korean resistance that has dominated the study of Korea’s colonial period (1910–1945) by adopting a more inclusive, pluralistic approach that stresses the complex relations among colonialism, modernity, and nationalism. By addressing such diverse subjects as the colonial legal system, radio, telecommunications, the rural economy, and industrialization and the formation of industrial labor, one group of essays analyzes how various aspects of modernity emerged in the colonial context and how they were mobilized by the Japanese for colonial domination, with often unexpected results. A second group examines the development of various forms of identity from nation to gender to class, particularly how aspects of colonial modernity facilitated their formation through negotiation, contestation, and redefinition.

The Harvard-Hallym Series on Korea, published by the Harvard Council on East Asian Studies, is supported by the Korean Institute of Harvard and Hallym University in Korea. The series is committed to the publication of outstanding new scholarly work on Korea, regardless of discipline, in both the humanities and the social sciences.Last updated on 03/02/2023

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The twelve chapters in this volume seek to overcome the nationalist paradigm of Japanese repression and exploitation versus Korean resistance that has dominated the study of Korea's colonial period (1910-1945) by adopting a more inclusive, pluralistic approach that stresses the complex relations among colonialism, modernity, and nationalism. By addressing such diverse subjects as the colonial legal system, radio, telecommunications, the rural economy, and industrialization and the formation of industrial labor, one group of essays analyzes how various aspects of modernity emerged in the colonial context and how they were mobilized by the Japanese for colonial domination, with often unexpected results. A second group examines the development of various forms of identity from nation to gender to class, particularly how aspects of colonial modernity facilitated their formation through negotiation, contestation, and redefinition.

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KOREAN STUDIES REVIEW

 

Colonial Modernity in Korea, Edited by Gi-Wook Shin and Michael Robinson. Harvard East Asian Monographs, no. 184, Harvard-Hallym Series on Korean Studies. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1999. xiii + 466 pages. (ISBN 0-674-14255-1, cloth; ISBN 0-674-00594-5, paper).

Reviewed by Michael Finch

Keimyung University

[This review first appeared in Acta Koreana, 5.2 (2002): 129-34. Acta Koreana is published by Academia Koreana of Keimyung University.]

 

Colonial Modernity in Korea is a collection of twelve chapters by thirteen different authors with an additional introduction to the complexities of Korean colonial modernity by the editors Gi-Wook Shin and Michael Robinson and an epilogue by Carter J. Eckert. The book is divided into two parts, entitled "Colonial Modernity and Hegemony" and "Colonial Modernity and Identity." The first part covers such topics as law, broadcasting, peasantry, labor, and telecommunications, while the second deals with such subjects as the women's movement, colonial literature, and nationalist historiography. The stated aim of the editors is to revitalise studies on colonial Korea by transcending the politicised, nationalist paradigms that have dominated historical writing in both the North and South of the peninsula.

In the introduction the editors reject the "binary constructions" (p. 5) of nationalist historical narratives that have produced such dichotomous interpretations of the period as "imperialist repression versus nationalist resistance" or "colonial development versus national development" (p. 5). Instead they propose a new theoretical construct in which the three variables of colonialism, nationalism, and modernity are recognised as interacting in complex ways that do not easily fit into the black and white interpretations of the period to which we have grown accustomed.

In the first chapter, "Modernity, Legality, and Power in Korea under Japanese Rule," Chulwoo Lee examines the legal system introduced to Korea by Japan. Lee presents three major themes. The first deals with the contradictory nature of the new legal framework that implemented "discrimination in the midst of assimilation" (p. 50). The second examines the extension of state control over the lives of the Korean people, while the third exposes the paradox of modern methods of state control being employed to bolster "traditional Japanese values" (p. 51) in an attempt to stem the tide of modernity. Lee shows how the Japanese leadership originally justified intervention in Korea on the grounds of engaging in a "mission of civilizing Asia" (p. 42) in emulation of the West but subsequently changed its position to that of defending traditional (Japanese) values against the tide of corrupting (modern) influences from the West. Although Lee's focus on the "flogging law" is somewhat predictable, and his conclusions do not appear to contradict more traditional studies on this topic, the sophistication and depth of his analysis make them that much more convincing.

In the second chapter, "Broadcasting, Cultural Hegemony, and Colonial Modernity in Korea, 1924-1945," Michael Robinson provides a detailed account of the establishment of the Kyôngsông Broadcast Corporation in Korea and its influence on cultural construction during the colonial period. Robinson rejects the simplistic view that "Japanese radio was just another in a series of coercive, modern technologies to further Japanese political control and, ultimately, assimilation" (p. 53). Instead he argues that while it cannot be denied that radio was used for the purposes of colonial control, Koreans themselves did not remain passive recipients of this form of modernity but also made great efforts to mold it to their own ends. He also points out that the Korean elite itself was divided in its views of radio as a medium of cultural maintenance on the one hand and as a vulgarising influence on the other. Robinson's examination of radio broadcasting in Korea exposes the paradox at the heart of Japanese colonial policy, especially during the bunka seiji (Cultural Rule) period: namely, that by allowing limited cultural autonomy, the Government-General of Korea both sustained and subverted "the ultimate goals of Japanese cultural assimilation" (p. 54). It is a pity, however, that the typo "Isben" for "Ibsen" (p. 66) in this chapter was missed in the editorial process.

In the third chapter "Colonial Corporatism: The Rural Revitalization Campaign. 1932-1940," Gi-Wook Shin and Do-Hyun Han explore the "relations between the colonial state and rural society in 1930s Korea" (p. 70) in the context of the Rural Revitalization Campaign (Nongch'on chinhûng undong). Shin and Han propose the model of "colonial corporatism" (p. 72) to replace traditional views of state-society relations. They identify and point out the limitations of the prevailing views in the historiography of this period, which in varying ways view the relationship as one of repression and resistance. The nationalist view is criticized for failing to recognize that colonial policy did not produce zero-sum outcomes and that in the case of the Rural Revitalization Campaign, the state and the peasantry benefited at the expense of the traditional landlord class. The second view that stresses that colonialism retained landlordism as an effective means of control over the rural populace is shown to only hold true for the period before the March First movement in 1919. According to Shin and Han, subsequent colonial policy bypassed the landlord class as the Government-General of Korea increased its direct involvement in rural affairs. The third view of "colonial totalitarianism" (p. 74) put forward by Gregory Henderson, in which a ruling elite is confronted by alienated masses, is criticized as being only partially applicable to the colonial policy of the war years. In conclusion the authors argue that the "corporatist state-society relations" (p. 96) that emerged in both Koreas after 1945, as exemplified by Park Chung Hee's Saemaul Movement (1971), have their roots in the Rural Revitalization Campaign of the colonial period.

In the fourth chapter, "The Limits of Cultural Rule: Internationalism and Identity in Japanese Responses to Korean Rice," Michael Schneider examines the generally neglected topic in Korean historiography of metropolitan attitudes toward Japan's colonisation of Korea. Schneider's study focuses on rice production in Korea and its export to Japan with specific reference to the Campaign to Increase Rice Production (CIRP). This topic has been much examined as an example of cynical Japanese exploitation of Korean resources in the name of "development," but the Japanese stance itself toward this phenomenon has generally been ignored. Schneider brings to our attention some important points such as the fact that Korean rice was not a coveted commodity in Japan and that peaceful emigration to South America was seen by the Japanese middle-class as preferable to participation in "empire building" in Korea and Manchuria. Although Schneider upholds the accepted views of Japanese colonial exploitation, by examining the Japanese side of the story, he presents a more balanced and accurate account of the complex strands of ideology and international circumstances that shaped Cultural Rule (bunka seiji) in 1920s Korea.

In the fifth chapter, "Colonial Industrial Growth and the Emergence of the Korean Working Class," Soon-Won Park reviews recent interpretations of the Korean colonial experience. In doing so she demonstrates that Koreans were not "mere passive recipients of modernity" (p. 131) and that despite their lack of political participation, Koreans were active participants in the construction of a "unique colonial modernity" (p. 131). Park goes on to examine various complex topics such as changes in Korea's labor-power structure, the expansion of the industrial workforce, its education, and growth in worker consciousness. In conclusion she argues in support of the current trend in Korean historiography on this period away from a monolithic approach toward the recovery of the "silenced voices and ignored subjects of the colonial period" (p. 160).

The final chapter in the first section, "Colonial Korea in Japan's Imperial Telecommunications Network," by Daqing Yang takes a dispassionate view of the role of telecommunications in Japanese colonial policy and brings to light two important points. First, telecommunications not only served to increase Japanese control but also provided opportunities, albeit unevenly distributed, to the Koreans themselves. Second, the development of telecommunications gave rise to increasing conflict between the Government General of Korea and the Ministry of Communications in Japan as power was gradually transferred from the colonial government back to the imperial capital. Above all Yang's study reveals the pettiness, self-interest, and intellectual poverty that lay behind the rhetoric of Japanese imperialist discourse.

Part Two, entitled "Colonial Modernity and Identity," begins with Chapter Seven, "The Price of Legitimacy: Women and the Kûnuhoe Movement, 1927-1931," in which Kenneth Wells' examines the position of women in colonial Korea. Focusing on the women's rights movement, the Kûnuhoe (Friends of the Rose of Sharon), an affiliate of the united front movement, the Sin'ganhoe (New Korea Society), Wells goes beyond the limits of traditional nationalist studies of the period. As a consequence, his study demonstrates the limitations of nationalist and socialist paradigms that ignore the important issues of social self-determination and reform of gender relations that, he argues, had been actively pursued by Korean women since the 1890s. Furthermore, Wells makes a simple but important point, which is relevant to all the studies in this collection, that "Koreans in the 1920s and 1930s did not relate everything to nationalist projects, as if there were no other reference points in their lives than the fact of Japanese rule" (p. 197). In conclusion Wells' thoughtful and well-researched study underlines the fact that traditional gender relations were preserved both by nationalist and socialist men even as they pursued their own political liberation.

In the eighth chapter, "Neither Colonial nor National: The Making of the 'New Woman' in Pak Wansô's 'Mother's Stake 1,'" Kyeong-Hee Choi provides a substantial study of many of the points outlined by Wells in the previous chapter. Choi's thorough analysis of the themes of gender, colonialism, and modernity running through Pak's novel underscores the paradoxes faced by women in that era. The mother is shown experiencing vicarious liberation from traditional male oppression by pushing her daughter, the narrator, along the path of "New Womanhood" (p. 228), while the narrator responds ambivalently to her loss of indigenous identity as she is immersed in a new colonial culture of urban modernity. The fact that Pak's novel is autobiographical gives it a historical basis while permitting her to imaginatively explore the psychological position of women, who were both suppressed by the indigenous culture while being the recipients of quasi-liberation from the colonial culture. Pak's novel eschews focusing on the extremes of suffering inflicted on Korean women during the war years but instead examines the day to day struggle of a Korean mother, who tries to realise her own dreams through her daughter. Ironically her desire for her daughter to embrace modernity leads her to push her into colonial subjection. These are just a few of the themes Choi highlights in a highly illuminating chapter.

In the ninth chapter, "Interior Landscapes: Yi Kwangsu's 'The Heartless' and the Origins of Modern Literature," Michael Shin examines the best-known work of the "father" of modern Korean literature. Yi's ambivalence as both a nationalist and a collaborator with the colonial government makes him a natural point of focus in the study of this period. In his conclusion, Shin provides an illuminating quotation from the Korean literary critic, Kim Yunsik, concerning Koreans attitudes to Yi: "When he betrayed the minjok, the reason that readers were so enraged and hurt was that they themselves had become Yi Kwang-su. They were not criticizing Yi Kwangsu but were criticizing, crying over, and pained at their own selves" (p. 284). The issue of Yi's betrayal of the minjok is not, however, the central concern of Shin's examination of Yi's early career and in particular the novel Mujông (The heartless). According to Shin, Yi's novel brings Korean literature into the modern period through its discovery of "interiority" (p. 252). Interestingly Shin identifies the novel as being set in the period between the end of the Russo-Japanese War and the annexation of Korea in 1910. Korea at that time still retained vestiges of independence and at the same time was experiencing rapid modernisation. Yi was perhaps expressing a longing for what might have been had Korea been permitted to modernize independently and how he himself might have developed as a writer beyond the restraints and distorting pressures of the colonial order.

In the tenth chapter, "National Identity and the Creation of the Category 'Peasant' in Colonial Korea," Clark Sorensen argues that the term "nongmin" (peasant) as a definition of a class was developed in 1920s Korea in order to "carve out a space for a Korean identity within an assimilative empire" (p. 288). Sorensen demonstrates how the term nongmin became increasingly identified with Korean ethnicity during the colonial period. This trend has, of course, persisted into the present, as Sorensen points out, with eighty percent of Korea's intangible cultural treasures being rural rituals and crafts. Sorensen contrasts Korean attitudes to the peasantry as "the basis of Korean ethnicity" (p. 291) with those in China, which tended to view the peasantry as an unenlightened mass. Sorensen astutely suggests that this was due to the latter's relatively independent status compared with Korea's colonial subjection. The fact that Korean modernization has taken place under the adverse circumstances of colonialism and dependence has certainly contributed to the sense that the modern and the urban are in some way "un-Korean." Sorensen's exploration of this theme is wide-ranging and thorough.

In the eleventh chapter, "In Search of Human Rights: The Paekchông Movement in Colonial Korea," Jeong-Seop Kim examines "the double-edged nature of colonial modernity, its enabling and restraining effects" (p. 312) in relation to the group of hereditary social outcastes known as the paekchông. Kim's study focuses on the formation of the Hyôngp'yôngsa, an association formed by the paekchông in 1923 to promote solidarity among its members and promote the abolition of social discrimination against its members during the colonial period. Kim cites the paekchông experience of colonial modernity as illustrative of the complex nature of the phenomenon. On the one hand colonial urbanization and industrialisation undermined the economic base of the paekchông, while on the other it provided this group with new opportunities for association and the pursuit of human rights.

In the final chapter, "Minjok as a Modern and Democratic Construct: Sin Ch'aeho's Historiography," Henry Em examines the term minjok, which he defines as being "the concept of Koreans as constituting a 'nation'" (p. 336). Earlier Korean historians argued that although the term minjok, a neologism created in Meiji Japan, may not have existed in Korea before the late 1890s, what it referred to did. That is to say, the use of the term minjok marked the "discovery" of what had always existed. Em, on the other hand, maintains that minjok is a modern construct that was first used in Korean historiography by the historian Sin Ch'aeho and was imposed on the historical development that took place on the Korean peninsula. Em argues, in line with many of his contemporaries, that the concept of nation itself is a transient entity that neither existed in the past nor will necessarily exist in the future as more pluralistic and less authoritarian political systems develop. Em argues that Sin Ch'aeho's later anarchist writings, focusing on minjung (the unprivileged people) rather than minjok, comprised a "political program that went beyond nationalism, and a historical view that undermined the continuous, unified narrative of the nation" (p. 361). Em concludes this perceptive and enlightening chapter with the suggestion that it is in Sin Ch'aeho's anarchist writings that a way forward may be found out of the impasse of "state-nationalism" (p. 361) that emerged in North and South Korea after the Korean War.

The book concludes with an epilogue, "Exorcising Hegel's Ghosts: Toward a Postnationalist Historiography of Korea," by Carter J Eckert. In a stimulating essay that illumines the themes covered in previous chapters, Eckert explores the task of the historian and argues for impartiality and objectivity as ideals to be sought after in historical scholarship in the face of pressures to produce history that serves the demands of nationalism and ideology. The limitations of this review prevent a full discussion of all the themes touched on by Eckert, but anyone wishing to embark on, or already engaged in the study of Korean history would do well to read this essay.

Colonial Modernity in Korea is a highly successful collaborative effort that goes a long way to broaden and diversify the scholarship in English on the Korean colonial period. It should certainly be required reading for any serious student of modern Korean and East Asian history. The fact that this book is also now available in paperback will hopefully ensure that it reaches the extensive readership that it deserves.

Citation:

Finch, Michael 2002

Review of Colonial Modernity in Korea, edited by Gi-Wook Shin and Michael Robinson. (1999)

Korean Studies Review 2002, no. 10

Electronic file: http://koreanstudies.com/ks/ksr/ksr02-10.htm

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