Organizer and Discussant: Jahyun Kim Haboush, University of Illinois,
Urbana-Champaign
Chair: James B. Palais, University of Washington
This panel is being sponsored by the Northeast Asia Council. Its desired function is to bring together scholars from Asia and North America on a topic of broad interest. "State and Society in Choson Korea" was chosen because the topic is believed to have a broad appeal to scholars across geographical areas and also across disciplines. The panel is designed as a forum to air and discuss different approaches and problematics. It will raise a few issues. The first is the question of locating sites. For a long time, a main approach to studying the relationship between state and local society was by examining the ways in which magistrates, representing the power of the state, and the local elite contested with each other and negotiated for dominance of the local population. This framework is felt to be somewhat limiting and the papers focus on different sites at which state and society intersected and interacted. Another issue is the question of how to problematize "the people." "The people" was very much presentin the rhetoric of Confucian politics and local rule. Moreover, state and local elite were maneuvering for dominance of the local population. Do we see "the people" as a third leg of a triangular relationship and, if so, how?
More specifically, Ingeol Kim will speak on the composition of the local elite of several Southern localities and he will discuss their role in the dynamics and shifting relations between magistrates, the local elite and "the ruled" (the people). Hejtmanek will focus on private academies in the Andong area as sites of contention for intellectual control between local literati and the central government. Chang will speak on the patterns of change in the modes of dominance of the local elite. He posits that the mode of dominance changes from measures intended to consolidate power through exclusive social and ritual privileges to measures aimed at inclusion of commoners and low-borns into a social and ritual framework which they dominated. Yi will speak on the site at which the eighteenth century Korean kings attempted to incorporate "the people" into the monarchical politics.
Local Elite Society and State Power in Mid-Choson Korea
Ingeol Kim, Seoul National University
It is well-known that during the Choson period, the central government maintained control of local society through magistrates whom the king appointed to each county and district to educate the local population and to collect taxes. From a structural point of view, the king, who represents state power, exercised strong control over the local population through this system. Highlighting this structure, however, leads to a static view with which it is impossible to explain the dynamics of social change. Morever, during the Choson period, state control of the people (min) was in fact maintained through the local elite and a communitarian order. Thus a systematic understanding of the change during the Choson period requires an analysis of the dynamics and the shifting relations among the state, the ruling elite and the ruled, that is, the people.
I would like to focus on the fact that during the mid-Choson period, in addition to a state governing sructure based on magistrates, there also co-existed in local society another power structure centering around the local elite who secured an autonomous space of their own. Contrary to the state plan, magistrates in reality had to carry out their duties with assistance from local elites and various local agencies which were under their control. In this paper, I will investigate the composition and change of local elite society, and how its mode of dominance was related to the manner in which it interacted with magistrates. I will provide examples from a few localities. I believe that this approach will suggest the changing nature of the shifting relations between the state, the local elite and the ruled, and, at the same time, lead to a more informed view of the nature of state power in mid-Choson society.
The Struggle for Control of Sowon Ritual in 17th-Century Korea
Milan G. Hejtmanek, Harvard University
Sowon, or local Confucian academies of Choson Korea, are usually understood as private educational institutions that operated in the interests of members of the yangban class outside the authority of the state. Yet, from the very outset with the founding of the first sowon in 1543, the academy system began developing a complex set of ritual, political, and financial ties to the provincial and central government and, especially, to the monarchy. The honor of a royal charter (sa'aek), first granted in 1550, became the goal of hundreds of sowon, but one granted with increasing reluctance by the king. In 1644 the central government instituted a petition system by which all new foundings of sowon and Confucian shrines had to receive prior approval by the Board of Rites upon petition from local literati.
This paper examines the origins of the petition system and explores its political and social ramifications over the next half-century, one of the most important of which was the heightened interaction of groups of local literati across the country with the central government. As a result the founding of academies became increasingly a politically charged ritual act, one whose chances of success were less dependent on commitment to Confucian ideals and educational excellence and more on the political and ritual acceptability of the Confucian worthies to be enshrined. An examination of the ritual contention between Hogye and Pyongsan academies in the Andong area and the struggle over Choson academy-founded four times and destroyed four times-between Honam literati and the central government provides insight into the tensions inherent in the sowon system during this period.
Patterns of Local Dominance in Choson Korea
Yunshik Chang, University of British Columbia
This paper will investigate the processes by which social order was established in local areas at county and village levels in Choson Korea. In particular, it will focus on the patterns of change in the modes of dominance of the local elite. In the earlier part of the dynasty, their modes of dominance were concentrated on consolidating power by the adoption of exclusive social and ritual privileges. From the middle of the dynasty, however, local elites expanded their control of local populations by incorporating them into their spheres of influence. They now constructed social and ritual communities in which they and commoners lived together rather than separately, but in which they now presided as moral exemplars. I will illustrate this changing pattern by examining the uses of different community rules. It appears that at first, the local elite relied on a local code (hyanggyu) which was exclusive, but that it gradually shifted over to community compacts (Hyangyak) which were inclusive.
I hope to place this finding in the larger context of the complex forces at work. The relationship among the differing forces has almost always been presented in a Marxian model of conflict. My examination leads me to believe that in Korea, the processes in which local society were Confucianized and the society it produced seem to be better described as a complementarity or encompassment model suggested by Louis Dumont.
On Kings Receiving Petitions from the People in the Streets: A New Politics of
the Confucian Monarchy?
Taejin Yi, Seoul National University
Confucian political theory always posited that "the people are the root of the nation." This notion emphasized the importance of the people, but did not recognize them as objects who participated in political processes. In the Confucian system, the subjects in politics were the king and the scholar-officials, while the people were the objects of rule. The Choson monarchy which attempted a realization of Confucian political precepts also established a national system which divided the population into scholars (the yangban) and the people, those engaged in practical occupations such as agriculture, crafts and commerce. After the eighteenth century, however, Choson kings began to restrict bureaucratic factional strife and at the same time to pursue an aggressive policy to form a direct relationship with the people. This resulted in a new procedure which enabled the king, when he was outside the palace, to receive petitions directly from the people. Moreover, the rhetoric also changed. The precept that "the people rely on the nation and the nation relies on the people" was emphasized. If the new rhetoric replaced king with the state, then the importance of the people seems to have been given a much more concrete emphasis. There are two related questions I would like to explore. The first is what is the social context in which the conceptual changes in politics occurred? The second is what are the implications of this change as applied to the question of modernity in Confucian political thought?