The core of 'the subjectification of sciences' may lie in developing the theories and research methodologies capable of explaining well the history and realities of the society where the scholars belong. It is, however, a formidable task for the schol ...
The core of 'the subjectification of sciences' may lie in developing the theories and research methodologies capable of explaining well the history and realities of the society where the scholars belong. It is, however, a formidable task for the scholars who do not belong to the leading countries of sciences. This research project aims to develop concepts showing well the characteristics of the Korean society, believing that it would be a first step for achieving the subjectification of sciences in terms of theories and methodologies.
This research consists of three parts. The fist one is 'the case studies of the practices of the subjectification of sciences in foreign countries', encompassing five papers. The papers examine the examplary cases of the subjectification of sciences pursued in Germany, Japan, China, and South Africa. And the intellectual histories of Korea, China, and Japan in response of the westernization of the societies are also analyzed focusing on the problem of the Orientalism.
The second part is 'the case studies of the practices of the subjectification of sciences in South Korea', encompassing two papers. The first one examines the theories related with the interpretation of the history of Korean capitalism, i.e., 'the theory of immanent development' by Yong-Sup, Kim and others, and 'the theory of national economy' developed by Hyun-Chae, Park. The other one analyzes the theories made for explaining the problems of the division of the Korean peninsula. The theories of Man-gil, Kang, Nak-cheong, Baik, and Du-yul, Song are analyzed and evaluated.
The third part is the core one of this research. It encompasses five papers trying to make new concepts explaining the specificities of Korean society. The first paper presents 'the theory of developmental capitalism', which tries to explain the industrialization of latecomers including not only South Korea, but also Germany, Japan and even USA. It is a theoretical adventure trying to go beyond the famous theory of the developmental states. The second paper presents a conceptual framework aimed to explain not only the main characteristics of modern Korean politics but also the general political problems around the modern representative democracies. The third paper analyzing the motives of the resistances of Korean working class stresses the weaknesses of the interests-oriented analytical framework of western theories in understanding the motives of Korean working class's resistances to the state and the capitalists. Instead, it suggests that the Korean working class's communitarian ethos, i.e. 'the sense of altogether', should be regarded as an important variable, and that the ethos can be traced to the traditional value of family in pre-modern society. The paper analyzing the female laborers' movement in 1970's stresses that the change of the attitudes of female labores' to 'knowledge' has contributed substantially to the development of the female laborers' movement. 'The knowledge for liberation' instead of 'the knowledge for rising in the world' has contributed to the making of the sense of self-respect and the self-identity of the female laborers as laborers. The final paper analyzing the change of the concept of 'Minjung' gives a genealogical explanation of how that concept has changed from 1920's till now, reflecting the changes of social structure and social movements.