Books

 

Book Image - Reinventing Family

Reinventing Family: Development, Democracy, and Demographic Crisis in South Korea (in progress, Columbia University Press)

 

The transformation of family patterns in advanced capitalist societies has received much attention. Juxtaposed to the relatively positive appraisal of “modern families” in Europe, alarm and anxiety characterize the discourse surrounding family change in East Asia. This book draws on the case of South Korea to better understand the mechanisms driving the diversification of family structure. The chapters that constitute the first half of the book aim to show that by 1997, on the eve of financial ruin, Korea had already experienced dramatic economic, political, and cultural transformations that became the foundations for family change. The chapters in the second part of the book explore the impact of post-crisis neo-liberalization and precarity on new family arrangements, including single-parent households, multicultural families, unmarried singles, and (the isolation of) senior citizens.

 

 

Book Image - Protest Dialectics

Protest Dialectics: State Repression and South Korea’s Democracy Movement, 1970-1979 (Stanford University Press)

 

The 1970s is characterized by many as the “dark age of democracy” in South Korea. Drawing on a novel protest event dataset, archival materials, and oral histories, this book highlights the importance of state repression in shaping mobilization in this oft-ignored decade. If South Korea in the postliberation period is characterized by a "strong state and contentious civil society," Protest Dialectics shows how, through specific historical processes, the state became "strong" and civil society "contentious." This book provides readers with an in-depth analysis of the emergence and evolution of the democracy movement in a highly authoritarian context, and shows how dissidents in the 1970s planted the seeds for the vibrant democracy South Korea enjoys today.

 

 

 

 

Book Image - South Korean Social Movements 

Book Image - South Korean Social Movements

South Korean Social Movements: From Democracy to Civil Society (Routledge)

 

This volume tracks the transformation of Korean social movements from the democracy movements during the authoritarian period to the dominance of civil society groups today. South Korea’s transition to democracy in 1987 was motivated, in part, by pressure from social movement groups that challenged the state to bring about democracy. After democratic transition, however, activists found themselves in a qualitatively different political context which in turn galvanized the evolution of the social movement sector. The democracy movement of the 1970s and 1980s gave way to increasingly institutionalized and diversified civil society movements, including the mobilization for gender, enviornmental, and sexual minority rights.