The aim of this study is to analyze the action dynamics and symbolic fields of critical moments of Korean social movement, in which new cultural horizons and collective self-identies are created. The research objects are the three historical events in...
The aim of this study is to analyze the action dynamics and symbolic fields of critical moments of Korean social movement, in which new cultural horizons and collective self-identies are created. The research objects are the three historical events in which civic protest movements and collective actions were extraordinarily active in the long-term protest waves from 1980s to 2000s: the Gwangju democratization movement in 1980, the June civic uprising in 1987, and the so-called 'candlelight protest' in 2002, 2004, and 2008. The present study tried to make clear the interactional dynamics of cultural creation by protest participants and the cultural conflict between dominant and challenging social forces. Particularly within concrete historical contexts of Korean social movement, the present study paid special attention to those collective identities and collective action frames that might be called 'republican', 'nationalist', and 'patriotic'.
More specifically, this study analyzed at first the cultural dynamics and meanings of the Gwangju protest in 1980, with particular emphasis upon structural hermeneutic analysis of symbolic interaction between protest participants and political power-holders. The focus of analysis was the interpretive reconstruction of meaning structures that were constituted in the process of conflictive symbolic interactions. Furthermore, previous sociological studies about the cultural aspects of the June civic uprising in 1987 were reinterpreted from the perspective of the research results about the Gwangju protest movement in the present study.
Concerning the protest movements of the 2000s, it must be noted that a large-scale candlelight protest arose in 2008, as the present research project was performing analyses about the candlelight protests in 2002 and 2004. As the candlelight demonstration in 2008 was an extraordinary protest event that needs deeper scholarly research, we included analysis of the candlelight protest of 2008 in this research project. The contents of research about the candlelight protests in the 2000s are as follows; first, data collection and analysis about the candlelight protests in 2002 and 2004; second, in-depth interviews with 63 protest participants in the candlelight protest in 2008; third, statistical and qualitative content analysis of some selected internet communities that played a particular role in the candlelight protest in 2008; fourth, computer-aided content analysis of writings of Daum Agora forum, in particular, thematic analysis and trend analysis; and finally, statistical content analysis(using VBPro) and symbolic network analysis(using UCINET and Netdraw) of printed small pickets and hand-written posts.
As to the research results, the findings of the structural hermeneutic analyses of Gwangju protest in 1980 and June uprising in 1987 cannot be reported before the eventual completion of sequential analysis of the whole phases of symbolic interactions. Our findings about the candlelight protest in the 2000s are as follows: Candlelight demonstrations in the 2000s began with respective specific issue such as the death of two middle school girls, the impeachment of the president Roh, and the US-Korean agreement on the import of US-beef products. But the interpretive frames, arguments and demands, and collective self-identities of participants included not only a single-issue, but political ideas and self-consciousness such as reform of US-Korean relationship, substantial realization of people's sovereignty, civic intervention into institutionalized party politics, and imaginations of more democracy. At the center of the candlelight protests in the 2000s were an amalgam of the idea of 'public state', everyday democracy beyond delegative democracy, and republican self-identities.