Measured Excess - Status, Gender, & Consumer Nationalism in South Korea

Erscheinungsjahr 2001
ISBN: 978-0-231-11617-6
Verlag: Columbia University Press

Buch, Englisch, 224 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 153 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 363 g

This insightful analysis of the ways in which South Korean economic development strategies have reshaped the country's national identity gives specific attention to the manner in which women, as the primary agents of consumption, have been affected by this transformation. Past scholarship on the culture of nationalism has largely focused on the ways in which institutions utilize memory and "history" to construct national identity. In a provocative departure, Laura C. Nelson challenges these assumptions with regard to South Korea, arguing that its identity has been as much tied to notions of the future as rooted in a recollection of the past.

Following a backlash against consumerism in the late 1980s, the government spearheaded a program of frugality that eschewed imported goods and foreign travel in order to strengthen South Korea's national identity. Consumption with its focus on immediate gratification threatened the state's future-oriented discourse of national unity. In response to this perceived danger, Nelson asserts, the government cast women as the group whose "excessive desires" for material goods were endangering the nation.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Nelson, Laura C.

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Ideologien Nationalismus
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Soziale Gruppen & Klassen
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Freizeitsoziologie, Konsumsoziologie, Alltagssoziologie, Populärkultur
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gender Studies, Geschlechtersoziologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface: Notes on Methods and Writing1: Consumer NationalismFirst Vignette: 19922: "Seoul to The World, The World to Seoul''Second Vignette: 19853: Producing New ConsumptionThird Vignette: 19914: "Kwasobi Ch'ubang": Measuring ExcessFourth Vignette: 19935: Endangering the Nation, Consuming the FutureFifth Vignette: 19916: CodaAppendix

Über Autor(innen)

Laura C. Nelson is an associate at MDRC, a nonprofit research organization, where she currently focuses on poverty, employment, and social policy in the United States.