ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses the Koreans' discourse of seonjinguk. It aims to give answers to the questions about seonjinguk, by revealing the characteristics of seonjinguk discourse prevalent in the political and public spaces of Korean society, and traces its historical genealogy as a Eurocentric discourse from a sociological perspective. The chapter considers all three definitions of discourse as not only respectively valid in different contexts, but also closely interrelated with one another. It pays attention to the aspect of discourse that carries more systemic meanings than are delivered in simple utterance. Discourse is understood as "a system of knowledge or of interpretive framework to interpret and construct the object and the subject, which is conveyed through various forms of utterances." In terms of economic ideology, seonjinguk is represented by conservative voices as a country on the principles of "liberal market economy" and "liberal democracy." This chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.