This research team tried to elucidate the reality of the process of 'making a nation' and 'Korean modernity' by using the body as the core link. In addition, it was attempted to organically grasp the social history of disease and care culture by exp ...
This research team tried to elucidate the reality of the process of 'making a nation' and 'Korean modernity' by using the body as the core link. In addition, it was attempted to organically grasp the social history of disease and care culture by exploring the process of changing health and health policies and medical culture surrounding the body. At the same time, the purpose of this study is to understand the changes in the order of colonization and the Cold War based on human experience in the comparative historical relationship between peacetime and wartime, and empire and colonization.
The research goal of the first year was to look at the 'birth of the modern body'. It was to explore the modern meanings engraved on the body in various fields such as nursing, medicine, tourism, history, and literature for an integrated understanding of the biological body and the ‘historical body’. In the process, this research team investigated the process of 'modernity' permeating the body by tracing the experience of modernity rather than judging the concept and meaning of 'colonial modernity' in an abstract and theoretical way. In order to achieve the research goal of the first year, this research team has set the following three detailed themes. First, in order to enter a 'civilized country', interest in hygiene has increased and the individual's body has become a subject to be managed. Second, the metaphor of a healthy body and a prosperous state was used as a universal rhetoric that penetrated the modern Enlightenment. Third, a healthy body and a civilized body were prerequisites for creating a modern nation state. As research results, Body Politics Research Series 1 - Planning and Body of Enlightenment (Seonin, 2019) and Body Politics Data Series 1 - Modern Health Discourse and Body Data Collection (1) (Seonin, 2019) were published.
The research goal of the second year was to examine the process of forming hegemony of the Western medical system, along with the Japanese imperial hygiene perception and enlightenment about colonial Joseon. In addition, the process of connecting Japanese and German medical knowledge to social policy was also considered for comparative review. In order to achieve the research goal of the second year, this research team has set the following three detailed themes. The first is the aspect of modern 'medical knowledge' and public health. Specifically, it was intended to reveal how ‘medical science’ or ‘medical common sense’ was distributed through drug advertisements and text analysis that appeared in the media. In addition, this research team explained the colonial power's perspective on sanitary customs and the enlightenment project in textbooks. The second is the aspect of epidemics and social management. This topic is intended to look at contemporary society through a historical approach to infectious diseases such as cholera and dysentery. In particular, it can be said that the disease management system is a topic that can receive many suggestions in today's 'corona phase' in that it is closely related to the power to manage social order. The third is to examine the relationship between medicine and politics, and between empire and race. In this topic, the background for the participation of medical personnel in the national movement was explained. And while tracing the context in which ‘medical perspective’ is combined with ideology through eugenics and racial theory, he noted that the technology and strategy of government intervened in the human body. And it was noted that it was utilized as a technique and strategy to govern the human body. As research results, Body Politics Research Series 2 - Planning and Body of Enlightenment (Seonin, 2021) and Body Politics Data Series 2- Modern Health Discourse and Body Data Collection (2) (Seonin, 2021) were published.
The research goal of the third year was to examine the relationship between colonial politics and colonial medical and hygiene policies. This topic was essential to analyze the mechanism by which the discourse on body and health was connected to social policy in that colonial social policy had the effect of defining the boundary between normal and abnormal and taking the body as the object of government. To achieve the research goal, this research team attempted a historical approach to the body and medical culture, and tried to derive interpretations from various dimensions by analyzing events and problems related to medical care and public health. Thus, the method and process of accepting medicine, not medicine itself, were analyzed. Also, the colonial period and the 'liberation period' were not separated as separate phases, but as a single 'time process' in the modern time period, trying to secure a dynamic perspective that traverses tradition, modernity, and postmodernity. The detailed themes set to achieve the research goals of the third year are as follows. First, it is an examination of the perception and acceptance patterns of modern health discourse. In this study, the early acceptance of Korean modern medical knowledge and social perception of medical care were considered. Also, by examining the sanitary propaganda of the Japanese police, they tried to understand the nature of colonial medicine. In addition, both historical and cultural approaches to the body were attempted while dealing with 'healthy beauty' and 'the people's body'. Second, the effects of state power on the body and the process of reorganizing daily life were examined through the health and social policies of Korea, Japan and Germany during the Japanese colonial period and ‘liberated space’. As research results, Body Politics Research Series 3 - Planning and Body of Enlightenment (Seonin, 2021) and Body Politics Data Series 3- Modern Health Discourse and Body Data Collection (3) (Seonin, 2021) were published.