Special Feature

No.68 Autumn 2013

Special Feature: Southeast Asian Studies: Crisis or Opportunity?

The Development of Southeast Asian Studies
in Korea
Park Seung WooProfessor, Department of Sociology,
Yeungnam University

Lee Sang Kook
Assistant Professor, Institute for East Asian Studies,Sogang UniversityIn Korea, academic interest in Southeast Asia first arose in theearly 1960s, when some language programs were offered incollege education. It is also around this time that Korea enteredinto diplomatic relations with major nations in Southeast Asia.
However, very little research was done during the ‘60s and ‘70s.
What can be regarded as the first Southeast Asia area specialists only appeared in the ‘80s. Their emergence was related
to the government’s policies for liberalization and opening up
the economy. It was around this time that many Koreans began
to show an interest in other foreign countries, particularly inless well-known countries, including those in Southeast Asia.
Thus, by the early ‘90s South Korea had opened up to a muchwider and strong currents of “globalization” and “regionalization.”In this context, the majority of the first generation Southeast
Asianists who started their academic careers during the late‘80s and early ‘90s majored in political science and in particular,
in comparative politics and international relations. It wasaround this time that an important institutional development
in Southeast Asian Studies took place. In June 1991, the Korean
Association of Southeast Asian Studies (KASEAS), was established and started to publish its own official journal, the Southeast Asian Review, in 1992.
A Study Group on Southeast Asian Politics, the predecessorof the Korean Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (KISEAS), wasformed in December 1990 with eight political scientists. Lateron it began to recruit more scholars from other disciplines suchas anthropology, economics, and sociology. In 1992, this wasexpanded into a Study Group on Southeast Asian Studies. Finally,
it was in 2003, that it was further expanded and reorganized
into the present day form of KISEAS.
From around the mid- ‘90s a new generation of Southeast
Asia area specialists began to join this academic field andSoutheast Asian Studies in Korea began to develop and mature.
Second generation researchers had a keen interest in the areaof Southeast Asia from the early stage of their academic careersand received more systematic training both in undergraduate
and graduate schools. They were also stimulated by the enthusiastic academic atmosphere created by the proliferation ofacademic societies such as KASEAS and KISEAS. One of thes­ ignificant features of the second generation is that conducting
long periods of fieldwork became de rigueur for them.
At the beginning of the 2000s, more and more young scholars with Ph.Ds in various disciplines were entering the field ofSoutheast Asian Studies. They were more diverse in terms of
their academic backgrounds and the universities from which
they graduated. Above all, the number of anthropologists substantially increased compared to the past and other disciplines
during this period.
It may be premature to judge the first decade of the 21stcentury to be the most fertile period in the history of Southeast
Asian Studies in Korea. But, it is nonetheless fair to say that it
was an era of very productive, progressive, and promising, academic work both in quantity and in quality.
One of the noteworthy characteristics of the last decade isthat many new research issues and themes have been developed and pursued. Firstly, there have been a series of studies
on regionalism in Southeast Asia and East Asia including suchthemes as regional cooperation, economic integration, and theEast Asian community. Secondly, more recently, many Korean
researchers have become more interested in trans-borderhuman exchange issues such as transnational migration, international marriage, migrant laborers, and resultant social problems that arise through human movement. Thirdly, “Hallyu,” or
the “Korean Wave,” in Southeast Asia has also become an issue
that has recently been studied and debated. Fourthly, the studyof connections and networks between Southeast Asia andother countries or regions have become another issue of research interest that has been frequently pursued by researchersinterested in the formation of the region. Another outstanding
feature of Korean Southeast Asian Studies in the last decade isthat collaborative research projects have proliferated. Many
researchers have formed their own research teams and­conducted research on common agendas and issues over anumber of years.
The first decade of the 21st century has also witnessed­notable progress in terms of institutional developments. The
KISEAS has now become more formalized academically andcontinues to play a role by providing an academic arena where13

scholars and r­esearchers can regularly meet, discuss and exchange ideas.
At this point, we should mention the role the KASEAS has
played over the last 10 years. It has long held regular academic
conferences ­bi-annually since its inception. Since the early
2000s, it has also held regular academic conferences every twoyears in cooperation with the ASEAN University network. It has
also organized joint conferences with Center for Southeast
Asian Studies (CSEAS) Kyoto University every two years since2009.
Above all, the role of Institute for East Asian Studies, Sogang
University at Seoul merits attention as since 2008, it has been
conducting a grand-scale research project sponsored by theNational Research Foundation of Korea. It has become a central
institute for Southeast Asian studies in Korea and has attempted to globalize its research activities. This effort culminated in
the launch of a new English journal named TRANS: Trans–Regional and –National Studies of Southeast Asia in early 2013,
published by Cambridge University Press.
However, there are a number of problems and limitations
that Korean scholars need to tackle. Firstly, although we should
not underestimate what has been accomplished by ­Korean
academics, we need to develop more analytical and theoretical
approaches to Southeast Asia.

Secondly, we need to make a more serious effort to transcend ­disciplinary boundaries and to ultimately integrate theminto a unique and independent discipline of “Southeast AsianStudies” or “Southeast Asiology,” something that is still conspicuously lacking. What is needed is not just an inter- or multidisciplinary approach to the region but a trans-disciplinary andintegrative approach to the study of Southeast Asia, althoughthat might not be an easy task to accomplish in the near future.
Lastly, although more and more research results are being
published in English and other languages, most publications
on the region have been in the Korean language. This language
barrier has prevented them from being widely known, and as
a result of this they remain unknown to foreign audiences. So
that more research conducted by Korean Southeast Asianists
can reach academics in other countries, we need to increase
academic exchanges and collaborative research through acommon language to encourage communication.
Despite these limitations, arguably Korea has been emerging
as one of the leading countries in this particular moment whenSoutheast Asian studies has been downsizing in the earlyrunners such as the US and Europe. We hope that in the near
future, when Korea demonstrates quality research outcomes
and its own approach to Southeast Asian studies, then ourcontribution to the scholarship will more deeply appreciated.

TRaNS: Trans – Regional and – National Studies of Southeast Asia

The Southeast Asian Review (published by the Korean Association of Southeast
Asian Studies)14