The shifting space of ontology

Appeals to Crisis and the Reformulation of Nation, Race, and Biology in Educational Reform

Bibliographic Data

ID2937252
AuthorsSunhye Kung (Ewha Womans University, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume39
Issue2
Pages196-218
Publication date2018-03-04
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueDiscourse Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0159-6306 • E-ISSN: 1469-3739
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/01596306.2018.1404195
OpenAlexW2769885410
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited18

This article considers a conflated ontological space where national projections named Koreanness are conjoined through national educational reform discourses associated with excellence and equality. It focuses on the shifting educational reform narratives that made appeals to notions of crisis before and after the IMF (International Monetary Fund) occurrence of 1997 in South Korea. Using Foucault’s concept of biopower and Lyotard’s concept of performativity, two representative Korean language newspapers (1995–1997 and 2005–2007) are analysed. The article concludes that the appeal to a sense of crisis through references to globalization (1995–1997) and the IMF (2005–2007) was utilized to elaborate the ontological shift in Koreanness-as-race from blood-tie (biology-as-nation-race) to label-based codification (biology-as-biopolitical species). The shifting nature of Koreanness elaborated here may ultimately offer suggestions for scenarios beyond its geopolitical realm, provoking reconsideration of convenient binaries, economic reductionism, and the frequent naturalization of biological rationalities in educational research

Biopower · Epistemology · Geopolitics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Realm · Reductionism · Social science · Sociology · Gender Studies · Global Education and Multiculturalism · Global Educational Policies and Reforms · Japanese History and Culture · Law

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub