<!doctype html public "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN">
<html><head><style type="text/css"><!--
blockquote, dl, ul, ol, li { padding-top: 0 ; padding-bottom: 0 }
--></style><title>[KS] KSR 2004-18: _Measured Excess: Status, Gender
and</title></head><body>
<div><font color="#000000">_Measured Excess: Status, Gender and
Consumer Nationalism in South Korea_, by Laura Nelson. New York:
Columbia University Press, 2000. 224 pages. ISBN: 0-2311-1617-9.;
$18.50 (paper).<br>
<br>
reviewed by Mikyeong Bae</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000">Keimyung University</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000">baemik@kmu.ac.kr</font></div>
<div><br></div>
<div><font color="#000000">[This review first appeared in _Acta
Koreana_, 6.1 (2003): 31-34. _Acta Koreana_ is published by
Academia Koreana of Keimyung University.]<br>
<br>
<br>
The author of<i> Measured Excess,</i> Laura C. Nelson, argues that
South Korea's identity has been as much tied to notions of the future
as it is rooted in a recollection of the past. She offers an
insightful analysis of the ways in which South Korean economic
development strategies have reshaped the country's national identity.
Especially, she indicates that South Korean's consumption is mainly
rooted in a concept of national unity. Nelson also asserts that the
government casts women as a group whose 'excessive desires' for
material goods endangers this national unity.</font></div>
<div><font
color="#000000"><x-tab>
</x-tab><br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>In the
introduction and chapter 1, the author examines how South Korean's
sense of national identity motivated much of the hard work of
development beginning in the 1960s and continuing through the early
1990s and how intersections between international economic processes,
the flow of time, and the mundane experience of life shape and strain
the sense of national mission. In this chapter, the author asserts
that South Korea's industrial concentration was mainly caused by the
dominance of the 'chaebôl'. She describes South Korea's dramatic
economic development as being related to the existence of 'chaebôl'
and an emphasis on national identity for the past 30 years. From the
1960s until the early 1980s, the government fostered a particular kind
of economic development, namely, export-oriented industrialization
dominated by a few enormous corporations. The success of this strategy
was remarkable, and the trick was to make the industrialization
process appear to be a national project with benefits that would
accrue not just to the 'chaebôl' and wealthy individuals, but to the
nation as a whole. The people were asked to make sacrifices, to work
long hours for poor pay for un-elected governments that offered
rewards to the rich, and to expect little for themselves. In fact,
Nelson insists that the accomplishments of this period were motivated
by a potent elixir of nationalism and hope that was widely held
throughout the population. This nationalism always has an effect on
consumption and the consumer in South Korea. As South Korean consumers
encountered an increasingly complex market, they relied on their sense
of identification with the nation. Consumers set themselves the larger
task of making consumer choices that were in the best interests of the
nation. In addition, the emphasis on an imagined future reunification
of both Korea as the site of the real nation was also fuel for South
Korean nationalism.<br>
<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>In chapter 2, Nelson focuses on the city
life of Seoul as a factor in the formation of national, class, and
gendered identities. She shows that people's experience of Seoul as a
place to live and the effects of the real estate market on people's
lives are important points for consumer practices. That is, Seoul's
physical changes mapped and mirrored South Korea's economic and social
transformation. People constantly sought points of orientation in
Seoul's ever changing space. The new shape of the city altered the
terms of social interaction and created new foundations for the
experience of class, gender, and nation.<br>
<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>In chapter 3, the author looks in more detail at
the interaction between local consumer patterns, drawing out the
particularities of how consumers have been formed and how certain
forms of consumption itself make the nation. She observed that the
elaboration of the market and the culture of consumption in South
Korea were rapid and pervasive. The material environment and the
consumer culture demonstrated to South Koreans that the nation had
been developed. Mass marketing generated an image of mass culture,
mass consumption, and consumer equality. The author, however,
indicated that consumer opportunities and choices were divergent in
various ways, and through their experiences South Korean generated new
views of the emergent consumer culture.</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>In chapter
4, Nelson examines the discursive reaction, 'kwasobi ch'ubang', to
social and material changes, looking at how popular themes and
government slogans intersect. The author asserts that appropriate
consumption was a moral issue with a long history in South Korea.
Especially, the author explores the discursive field of frugality and
over-consumption, and examines the forms and sources of this
discourse. While normal constructions of appropriate and patriotic
consumption can be traced back to the pre-colonial period, in recent
decades frugality has been represented as a strategy for national
economic development, a moral practice of cultural preservation from
the corruption of luxury and modernization, and a means of defending
the nation from international shame and economic ruin. The author
concludes that 'kwasobi' discourse in South Korea has explicitly tied
individual lifestyles to the national destiny.<br>
<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>In chapter 5, the author focuses on the ways in
which gender and patriotism have become intertwined in the South
Korean focus on consumer practices and choices, especially the
'kwasobi ch'ubang'. The author points to the variety of threats
consumption poses to the sense of South Korean national unity and
analyses South Korean women's social roles, consumption practices, and
patriotism. Women in South Korea are actively engaged in the
maintenance as well as the transformation of cultural ideas and
practices. Women charged with enacting the ideals of proper consumer
patriotism, found themselves on the front lines, facing the
incongruities between the present and the past.</font><br>
</div>
<div><font
color="#000000"><x-tab>
</x-tab>In the final chapter, the author revisits these issues in the
light of the Asian Crisis that began in 1997. The consumer nationalism
in South Korea incurs the complexity of interrelations between state,
nation, and community; between identities and ideologies; between
localities and the globalized world. It is useful to bear in mind in
how many different ways people in one locality can engage a discursive
field, even one as pervasive as 'kwasobi'. The author concludes that
in South Korea, political projects have been tied to the mobilization
of a nationalistic material desire and the advocating of frugality.
Ongoing contradictions between these positions were negotiated through
a particularly gendered patriotism, where women were charged with
making choices about how to carry out this program.</font><br>
</div>
<div><font color="#000000"><i><br>
</i>Citation:<br>
Bae, Mikyeong 2004<br>
_Measured Excess: Status, Gender and Consumer Nationalism in South
Korea_, by Laura Nelson (2000)<br>
_Korean Studies Review_ 2004, no. 18<br>
Electronic file: http://koreaweb.ws/ks/ksr/ksr04-18.htm</font></div>
</body>
</html>