A Graduate Student Perspective- Anna Jungeun Lee, EALC-HEAL, G4, KI Graduate Summer Research Grant, Summer 2018

September 6, 2018
Image of graduate student, Anna Jungeun Lee, in Korea in 2018

I applied to the Korea Institute Graduate Summer Language Research Grant for fieldwork and research in Korea, from May 30th to August 31st, 2018. After presenting at the prospectus conference in May, this was the first opportunity I had to conduct dissertation research abroad, with a focus on analyzing government documents on consumption policies during the Park Chung Hee period. With this in mind, I visited the National Archives Headquarters located inside the Daejeon Government Complex, and the Daejeon Repository of the National Archives, located nearby the headquarters. The grant allowed me to travel to South Korea, pay for food and lodging, transportations costs within South Korea including Seoul-Daejeon trips, and fees to retrieve pdf files and voice files from the government archives. Although most of the material I needed was allowed public view, some of them were only partially made public and required permission from the presiding staff.

At the National Archives Headquarters, I focused on finding primary sources, and did not confine my search specifically to consumption policies, but on contextualizing this in economic and geopolitical factors of the Park Chung Hee period. This included finding documents that have linkages to the broader economic goals, and finding out about the domestic demand of corporations, how the government responded to U.S. relations, and how the government gave consideration to the social reality of rising consumption levels. Documents included Council minutes of the Minister of Economy, government reports on economic trends, regulations on installing economic adjustments, and also all government documents relating to department stores and housewife clubs (related to current-day Ministry of Gender Equality and Family). In considering the rest of my fieldwork process for ten more months, I am eager to incorporate this material into the broader focus of my dissertation research.