ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a formal definition and core theoretical components of compressed modernity, explains historical and structural conditions for compressed modernity, and discusses the historical and theoretical relevance of compressed modernity beyond the South Korean context. Compressed modernity is a civilizational condition in which economic, political, social, and/or cultural changes occur in an extremely condensed manner in respect to both time and space, and in which the dynamic coexistence of mutually disparate historical and social elements leads to the construction and reconstruction of a highly complex and fluid social system. The space condensation realized by South Koreans’ own will was accelerated in the 1990s under the full forces of informatization and globalization. The social phenomena and cultural elements generated in the above four dimensions of compressed modernity are often put in intense competition, collision, disjuncture, articulation, and compounding among themselves, so that more social phenomena and cultural elements are engendered.
