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Folklore and Protection Policy: A South Korean Case. The Governmental Protection and Use of Korean Shamanism in years 1962-1988

Presented by Dominik Wróblewski, PhD, independent academic researcher.

This Zoom event will take place on Sept. 18th, 8:00-9:30AM (Los Angeles Time)/17:00PM (CET)/ 00:00AM (Seoul Time).

Abstract

After liberation in 1945 and after the Korean War (1950-1953), South Korea found itself in a problematic situation. The government and the state itself had to face the struggle of reshaping and re-discovering its national identity. To achieve this aim, which seemed to be an almost impossible achievement, the authorities had to re-discover and re-create traditional Korean culture. During the Rhee Syng-man rule (1948-1960) and during the New Community Movement, established by Park Chung-hee in 1970s, South Korea experienced rapid modernization, urbanization and Westernization. Due to it, the state faced the import of new cultures, particularly from the United States. As a result, the government was made to take legal efforts to preserve and protect Korean cultural properties, including shamanism and other folk beliefs. In 1962, the South Korean government enacted the Cultural Property Protection Law (CPPL) as a part of a cultural protection and conservation policy. Under the CPPL, folklore, including shamanism, is authorized as an important intangible cultural property. Moreover, national performers, including shamans, receive financial support from the government and they are designated as the Living National Treasures – protectors of traditional Korean culture. Furthermore, the CPPL helps the South Korean government to use shamanism and other folk beliefs politically. In 1962-1988, the authorities used nationalism in a uniform of shamanism to legitimize its rule, to demonstrate a great historical and cultural legacy of Korea and to prove a uniqueness of Korean national identity. To achieve this aim, the government had to reshape the original context of shamanism for the purpose of institutionalization and politicization. In other words, the South Korean authorities covered its own actions in the disguise of shamanism which was rather a political strategy of promoting and representing cunning, deceptive and creative authority in terms of traditional, folkloristic and religious conditions. The study of this speech concentrates (briefly) on the 20th Century relationship between the South Korean government and shamanism, political use of folklore, the legislation of Cultural Property Protection Law and its effect on intangible items. The study also analyzes the recontextualization of shamanic performances, the folklore politics of reshaping, re-discovering and re-creating Korean traditions as national symbols.

About the Presenter

Dominik Wróblewski studied in the Faculty of Philology at the State School of Vocational Education and also in the Department of Asian Studies, Faculty of International and Political Studies, at the University of Lodz. He was a scholar at the Academy of Korean Studies, Republic of Korea and participated in the 2018 AKS Program for Korean Studies. His major academic interests are: the politicization process of Korean religion and folklore, the governmental use of intangible and tangible cultural properties in South Korea, religious and cultural policy in East Asian countries, especially South and North Korea and Japan, connections between shamanism and the South Korean authorities, cultural differences and similarities between both Korean states and Japan, national identity and nationalism on the Korean Peninsula. His additional academic interests are: the Kim dynasty in the DPRK, inter-Korean relations, the Westernization process in South Korea, totalitarian and authoritarian regimes in East Asian region and the concept of utopia.