The Making of Minjung

Science, state, and spirituality: Stories of four creationists in South Korea

“…There, engineering students' lives were considerably different from those of other SNU students, who enjoyed the vibrant intellectual life of the capital city that often encouraged political radicalism against the authoritarian government. 88 Alumni of SNU's College of Engineering were thus similar to later KAIS or KAIST graduates, since both were expected to be apolitical and compliant. As Hong has mentioned, these engineers were often called derogatory terms like kongdori (engineering boys), which could also mean low-paid factory workers.…”

The Specter of the Past: Reconstructing Conservative Historical Memory in South Korea

“…Only vaguely known until the late 1980s, the April 3 Jeju Uprising started on Jeju Island in 1948, when leftists, protesting the US military government's decision to hold an election on May 10 to start a separate government in South Korea, attacked police and right-wing paramilitary groups. 47 The US military and the South Korean police countered this armed rebellion with extremely brutal tactics, including torture, mass detention, the burning down of entire villages, and the indiscriminate killings of civilians. 48 The violent conflict lasted until 1954 and resulted in an estimated thirty thousand deaths-about 10 percent of the entire population of Jeju.…”

“…Developed in the 1980s, this counterhistoriography by the minjung movement tried to reveal what had been veiled by the state-imposed official history-ordinary citizens' unyielding efforts of resistance against brutal state violence and repression. 52 Influenced by Marxism and liberal theology, labor activists and college students organized minjung movements in the 1980s to overthrow the authoritarian regime. Literally referring to the common people or the masses, such as rank-and-file workers, peasants, and the urban poor, minjung has a normative connotation that people who are usually marginalized and occupy the bottom rung of the social hierarchy carry a potential for instigating social change (or revolution).…”

The Candlelight Girls’ Playground: Nationalism as Art of Dialogy, The 2008 Candlelight Vigil Protests in South Korea

“…4 A term that refers to an individual activist or the minjung (or people's) movement, undongkweon denotes the creation of a separate and competing "counterpublic sphere" in which the norms and values differed from those commonly associated with the public. 5 The undongkweon's counterpublic sphere was often portrayed as "marginal" and "insignificant" by the mass media and government, and even as ideologically threatening to the rest of society. 6 They actively carved out their community through their distinctive discourse, values, ceremonies, and culture in opposition or as an alternative to the dominant culture and values.…”