Korean anthropology between global market and local community

Abstract

This article presents a brief historical review of anthropology in Korea. In the formative stage, two major movements are considered: anthropology that was introduced under Japanese rule (1910–1945) in the form of colonial ethnology, and modern anthropology that was imported directly from the West after the Liberation (1945). Then, recent trends are examined, with particular reference to anthropological knowledge in the context of the Korean local community, of East Asia as a region, and of the global anthropology market. The article particularly emphasizes that anthropologists on the periphery such as in Korea are faced with a dilemma between the need to globalize their academic results and also to produce locally relevant knowledge, indicating the existence of disparity between the global and the local. The article calls for a serious re-consideration of the power issue involved in the ways by which anthropological questions are conceptualized and formulated.