Organizer: Sang-Hyun Kim, Harvard University

Chair & Discussant: Nancy Abelmann, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Despite the central role of science, technology, and medicine (STM) in modern society, critical investigations into these areas have been largely absent in Korean Studies. When discussed, STM tend to be treated as specialized domains isolated from politics and culture. The papers in this panel seek to demonstrate that, on the contrary, not only the utilization of STM outputs but also the production, practices, and cultural meanings of STM are inseparably linked to the processes of nation-/state-building in Postcolonial South Korea. Sungook Hong, for example, suggests that the Park Chung Hee government’s "‘Scientification of the All-Nation’ Movement" in the 1970s, which sought to build broad support for science and technology, was simultaneously an attempt to construct a new national identity. By examining governmental discourses on science and technology for the past decades, Sang-Hyun Kim argues that the imagination of nationhood is deeply implicated in the formation of South Korea’s sociotechnical visions. Tae-Ho Kim shows that Tong-il, actively promoted by the Park government in the 1970s, was not simply a new rice variety, but at the same time the embodiment of the regime’s political and economic ambitions. Finally, in her analysis of South Korean population policy and related debates, Young-Gyung Paik contends that public health measures on reproduction were inextricable features of the state’s imagination of South Korea’s political future. Taken together, these studies draw the attention of Korean Studies scholars to STM as important subjects for socio-cultural, political, and historical analysis.

Sungook Hong, Seoul National University

On January 12, 1973, the South Korean President Park Chung Hee held his New Year’s press conference. In his address, Park, while declaring the ambitious Heavy Chemical Industrialization program, also called for the "‘Scientification of the All-Nation’ Movement." It was not accidental that these two seemingly different initiatives were announced on the same day. Contrary to what the title might suggest, the Movement was not a typical enlightenment campaign against superstition and irrational thinking. Rather, the aim was to build a broad base and support for the development of science and technology, which Park saw as essential to his nation-building strategy. A series of state-led actions soon followed. For instance, the Korean Science and Technology Promotion Foundation organized lecture tours and book fairs to educate housewives and youth about the importance of science and technology. The Korean Federation of Science and Technology Societies formed the New Community Technology Corps to provide technical assistance to farmers. The Ministry of Science and Technology even advanced the slogan "One Person, One Skill." This Movement, which lasted until 1979, was not a success in terms of immediate impact on South Korea’s technological capabilities. Nor did its narrow, top-down approach go without criticism. But it effectively disseminated a particular cultural understanding of science and technology across Korean society – one that strongly emphasized the practical utility of science and technology. Through these processes, South Koreans were encouraged to, and to a large extent did, reimagine themselves as members of a modern technological nation.

Tae-Ho Kim, Seoul National University

Throughout the 1960s, South Korea’s rural sector served the country’s rapid economic growth as a reservoir of labor. On the other hand, rural stagnation not only hindered a stable food supply for urban workers, and thereby the expansion of domestic market, but also endangered the cohesion of South Korean society. In the early 1970s, in responding to these difficulties, the Park Chung Hee government introduced new high-yielding Indica-based rice, "Tong-il [reunification]," which was developed in collaboration with U.S. agronomists. Both urban consumers and rural farmers resisted the introduction of Indica-based rice. While consumers found it less tasty than Japonica rice, farmers considered it incompatible with their traditional agricultural practices. By contrast, the Park government viewed Tong-il as vital to achieving national goals, and actively promoted its distribution. Farmers were forcefully guided to plant Tong-il, and a campaign was launched to educate consumers about its supposed nutritional values. Research to develop Tong-il derivatives was also given full support. By ensuring food security and increasing farm incomes, the Park government insisted, Tong-il would help South Korea narrow the gap between urban and rural areas, sustain the pace of economic growth, and win the competition with North Korea. Thus, Tong-il was not simply a new rice variety. The seed was at the same time the embodiment of the Park government’s political and economic ambitions and integral to state-building efforts. And it was not a coincidence that the devastating failure of Tong-il in 1978 was soon followed by the downfall of the Park regime.

Sang-Hyun Kim, Harvard University

It is widely accepted that science and technology (S&T) have played an important role in South Korea’s rapid socio-economic transformation. What is not adequately recognized is that the ways in which S&T are developed and integrated into Korean society are informed by particular visions of the relationship between S&T and society, and that such "sociotechnical" visions are deeply imbued with the imagination of Korean nationhood. This paper aims to illuminate these dimensions by examining South Korea’s governmental discourses on S&T during the period from the Park Chung Hee era (1961-1979) to the 1990s. I argue that South Korea’s dominant sociotechnical visions are embedded in a unique combination of nationalism, developmentalism, and a strong utilitarian view of S&T. The origin of this assemblage can be traced back to the colonial period, but its enduring pattern developed in the Park era when S&T began to be systematically incorporated into the processes of nation-building. The sociotechnical vision that emerged during Park’s "modernization of the fatherland" project was well reflected in the discourses of "nation-building through science" and "technological self-reliance." After Park was assassinated in 1979, South Korea underwent significant political and economic changes. These discourses, however, persisted through the 1990s, and were enthusiastically adopted by the civilian governments of Kim Young-Sam and Kim Dae-Jung. While both governments emphasized a break with past military regimes, their "segyehwa(globalization)" and "second nation-building" initiatives endorsed similar, albeit nuanced, sociotechnical visions, which sought to imagine Korea through the lens of nationalism, developmentalism, and a utilitarian view of S&T.

Young-Gyung Paik, Johns Hopkins University

In 1961, with the specter of North Korean communism hovering nearby, a new South Korean regime unexpectedly reversed its previous family planning practices to discourage an increase in population. In doing so, it acted on fears that unchecked reproduction could only serve as the breeding grounds for the "disease" of communism within South Korea itself. I suggest that the shift in population policy, from encouraging reproduction to drastically limiting it, speaks to the availability of population management as a seemingly objective tool of modernization, and to the state’s changing structure of anticipation with respect to its political relations with North Korea. Fearing that the unregulated reproduction of the present was threatening the future, the state decided to put heavy restrictions on reproduction. Based on historical research on population policies since the 1960s and ethnographic research on the current state of and popular anxieties about the depopulation crisis, I will argue that the creation of public health agencies to supervise the citizenry’s body was closely intertwined with the regulation of the citizenry’s political obedience.