URBAN ASPIRATIONS OF SEOUL:

RELIGION AND MEGACITIES IN COMPARATIVE STUDIES

The 1st International Conference/Publication Project on Seoul

Date: June 26-27, 2013

Place: The Seoul Institute, Seoul, Korea

Organized by:

Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Germany

Institute of Globalization and Multicultural Studies,

Hanyang University, South Korea

*This conference is supported by the Academy of Korean Studies Grant funded by

the Korean Government (MEST)(AKS-2011-AAA-2104).

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TABLE

PANEL 1: Religion in the colonial period and the Cold War ------------------005

Religious Publishing and Urban Life in Colonial Seoul

Kim, Michael Yonsei University------------006

Why Were They Headed for Church?: Roles and Functions of Urban Church during the stablishment of

Welfare Regime of Korea in the Park Jung-hee Administration

Jung, Yong-Taek The Christian Institute for the 3rd Era------------007

Freedom in Seoul: Pedagogies of Ideal Citizenship among North Korean Migrants

Jung, Jin-Heon MPI MMG------------027

PANEL 2: Healing in the City ----------------------------------------------------039

City mediators and the Emergence of ‘Healing Industry’

Kim, Hyun-Mee Yonsei University------------040

Presence without Being Visible: the Emergence of Kutdang (the Shamanic Commercial Ritual Halls) and

the Importance of Body and Space in Religious Politics in Korea

Park, Jun-Hwan Sogang University------------045

“Paramedical” Healing in Hospitals: The Expansion of Spiritual Care in Seoul

Park, Irene Yung Yonsei University------------056

PANEL 3: Urban Aspirations in Ritual and Representation--------------------077

Small is Sacred: Searching for New Community in the Modern City

Ha, Hong-kyu Yonsei University------------078

Notes from an MT: Women's aspirations at a South Korean advertising agency

Fedorenko, Olga New York University------------088

Collective Prayer and the Authoritative Word

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Harkness, Nicholas Harvard University------------097

PANEL 4: Urban Asymmetries-Religious Aspirations and Uneven Development- --107

Redevelopment, Seesaw Theory, and Religious Actors: What’s at Stake?

Lisa Kim Davis University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)------------108

Being Awake in the 24 hour City: The Power of Prosperity in Pre-dawn Prayer Meetings and Nighttime

Market

Park Seo Young Dept. of Anthropology, Scripps College------------122

Megatemples and “first-quality Buddhists (myŏngp’um pulcha)” Buddhism toward a new social

position in contemporary Korea?

Florence Galmiche Ruhr University Bochum------------131

Urban Ecology of Religious Growth and Anti-Growth in Seoul

Ju Hui Judy Han University of Toronto------------136

PANEL 5: Spatial Configuration of Migrant Muslim’s Everyday life in Seoul 145

Muslim Communities in Korea: Focusing on the characteristics of various Groups

Oh, Chong-Jin Hankuk University of Foreign Studies------------146

The State, Adaptation and Community Organization of Arab Muslim Migrants in Korea

Cho, Hee-Sun Myongji University------------156

Inclusion and Exclusion of Life Spaces for Muslim Populations of Seoul

Song, Do-young Hanyang University------------161

PANEL 6: Urban Aspiration in Comparative Perspectives -----------------------------171

Dealing with Dragon: Urban Planning in Hanoi

Ngo, Tam T.T. and van der Veer, Peter MPI MMG------------172

In Light of Mass Apparitions: National and Sectarian Imagination in Egypt

Heo, Angie MPI MMG------------181

Caste and the human: Aspiration, reality and millennial eschatology

Roberts, Nathaniel MPI MMG------------185

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In Place of Ritual: Secular City, Sacred Space, and the Guanyin Temple in Singapore

Goh, Daniel PS National University of Singapore------------216

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PANEL 1:

Religion in the colonial period and the Cold War

This panel historicizes the transformation of Seoul with the lens of religion. Japanese colonialism

and the Cold War national division are crucial contexts in which Seoul encountered drastic changes

in all respects. What role has religion played in its intersections with political-economic changes?

How has religion contested and negotiated meanings of Seoul’s spatial landscapes? This panel takes

a closer look at religious architecture, rituals, and politics in the central area of Seoul during the

colonial and national division eras (1910~present).

Chair & Discussant:

Chung, Byung-Ho (Professor, Dept. Anthropology, Hanyang University)

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Religious Publishing and Urban Life in Colonial Seoul Kim, Michael

Yonsei University

Abstract

An important aspect of the megacities of today is the importance of media in constructing a sense of

community and public sociability. The connection between the urban life of various associations and

their publication activities can be seen through an examination of Christian publishing in Seoul

during the colonial period. Seoul under the Japanese Empire was the center of many aspects of

colonial society, but one of the least appreciated was its role as the capital of religious publishing.

The Christian missionaries in Korea formed a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ to carve up the colony into

exclusive zones for their proselytizing efforts, but the sole exception was the city of Seoul, where

they were all denominations were free to compete with each other. Colonial Seoul produced a

prodigious amount of Christian publications, and there is a need to consider their significance in light

of the important role that they played in the urban life of the city.

This presentation will introduce some of the major Christian publication companies such as the

Christian Literature Society and the Kidokkyo ch’angmunsa and discuss their interconnections with

the various churches and Christian associations such as the YMCA. The Christian publications not

only discussed religious matters, but they also serve as an important vehicle for constructing the

urban life of the Christian community by providing the means to communicate with each other and

discuss issues of common interest. In essence, a ‘Christian public sphere’ formed through the

proliferation of Christian publications, and there is a need to examine both the material foundations

of their production and the impact that they had in shaping the urban life of colonial Seoul.

Michael Kim specializes on colonial Korea and has written on a wide range of topics ranging such as the urban history

of Seoul, colonial print culture, Chinese migration in colonial Korea, and the wartime mobilization of Koreans during

WWII. His academic works have been published or translated in German, French, English, Japanese and Korean. Recent

works include "Lost Memories of Empire and the Korean Return from Manchuria, 1945-1950," Seoul Journal of Korean

Studies (Dec. 2010) and "The Hidden Impact of the 1931 Post-Wanpaoshan Riots: Credit Risk and the Chinese

Commercial Network in Colonial Korea," Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies (Oct. 2010). His is also a co-editor

of Mass Dictatorship and Modernity (Palgrave MacMillan, Forthcoming 2013). He is a graduate of Dartmouth College

(AB in History) and received his Ph.D. from the East Asian Languages and Civilization Department at Harvard

University. Contact email: mkim@yonsei.ac.kr

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Why Were They Headed for Church?:

Roles and Functions of Urban Church during the Establishment of Welfare

Regime of Korea in the Park Jung-hee Administration

Jung, Yong-Taek

The Christian Institute for the 3rd

Era

Abstract

“What kind of activities have the Korean churches in the urban society conducted to act as an

“alternative” welfare service provider that satisfies the welfare desire of the public? This study

suggests answers to the question from two perspectives.

First, the churches in Korea have functioned as a place where the welfare desires are revitalized,

which are created by the conflict between the public need and demand for welfare mainly by the

workers of the urban society after the Revitalizing Reforms system developed in the Park

administration. The churches have provided a kind of “psychological well-being” or “subjective

well-being” to the public by transforming their welfare desires to religious ones.

Second, the churches in Korea have been a venue where the social capital accumulates and

expands with the network as a vehicle, which is newly formed in the city during the rapid

urbanization and industrialization of the Korean society. They have been one of the actors to provide

the so-called “network-based welfare” that lives up to the welfare demand through the network of

church communities like other connected communities or voluntary associations.

Particularly, regarding the second function, the church communities have had psychological

impacts of vicarious satisfaction on the congregation’s need for stronger public welfare system. They

formed the network-based welfare or social capital while serving as a social network of the urban

society. The church communities encouraged the congregation to recognize that the welfare need for

public actions are to be fulfilled by family or church communities, in other words, by private

resources or means. This can be considered that they performed the effect of the de-politicization that

takes away such welfare needs from the public place. As a result, this may be referred to one aspect

of the Korean churches that contribute to maintaining the conservative nature of the current Korean

welfare system.

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그들이 교회로 간 까닭은?

박정희 정권기 한국 복지체제 형성 과정에서 도시교회의 역할과 기능

정용택

제3시대그리스도교연구소 상임연구원

복지체제와 도시교회

에스핑앤더슨(G. Esping-Andersen)의 복지체제(welfare regime) 유형론이 학계에서 영향력을 행

사하게 되면서, 그의 분석에서 누락되었던 동아시아 국가들의 복지체제를 어떻게 유형화할 것인가

에 대한 여러 논의가 진행되어 왔는데, 한국의 복지체제의 성격에 대한 논의 역시 이러한 동아시

아 복지체제 논의의 연장선상에서 이루어졌다. 이러한 논의의 과정에서 제도주의 정치경제학자들

에 의해 제시되었던 발전국가론(Developmental State theory)에 기초하고 있는 발전주의적 복지

체제(Developmentalist welfare regime) 모델이 박정희 정권기 이래로 한국의 복지체제를 분석하

는 주도적인 분석틀로 자리매김했다.1 그런데 최근 들어 그 시기 한국의 복지체제의 특성에 관한

고찰이 많이 이루어졌음에도 불구하고, 여전히 그러한 ‘문제적’인 복지체제가 유지될 수 있었던 당

시의 구체적인 사회적 조건이나, 그러한 국가주도의 복지체제에 대한 대중들의 다층적인 반응 내

지는 포섭과 저항의 복합적인 양상에 대해선 충분한 설명이 제시되지 못했다. 즉, 국가에 의한 공

적인 복지공급의 현저한 결핍을 다양한 민간영역(가족, 기업, 공동체, 제3섹터)의 복지공급을 통해

효과적으로 대체할 수 있었던 당시의 혼합적인 복지구조의 현실에 기초하여, 그러한 독특한 복지

체제가 형성되고 작동하는데 기여한 국가 이외의 제도적 변수들에 대한 심도 있는 고찰이 부족했

던 것이다. 이 글은 바로 그와 같은 이론적 공백에 대한 신학적 차원의 개입으로서, 특히 당시의

한국경제와 더불어 급성장한 한국교회가 도시에서 수행한 비공식적 복지활동의 실태 및 그 이면의

사회적 효과를 살펴봄으로써, 관련 쟁점들에 대한 민중신학적 해석의 가능성을 모색하고, 나아가

복지라고 하는 사회적 장소를 매개로 하여 한국사회의 보수주의 형성과 교회의 역할 간의 관계에

대한 새로운 접근을 시도한다.

이를 위해 이 글이 던지는 핵심적인 질문은 다음과 같다. “박정희 정권기 한국교회가 어떤 활

1 발전주의 복지체제론에 따르면, 이 시기에는 파이 이론으로 대표되는 ‘선 성장, 후분배’, ‘성장을 통한 복지’, ‘낙수 효과’ 등의 발전

주의국가 이데올로기가 한국 사회를 지배했다. 나아가 민주화 이후 한국 복지국가의 발전과정에서도 성장우선주의와 노동시장에의

근로 유인 등 발전주의적 성격이 강하게 나타난다는 점에서 박정희 정권의 복지정책의 유산은 한국의 복지체제의 원형질로 계속

기능하고 있다(한준성, 2012). 특히 박정희 정권기의 발전국가는 재정문제로 사회보장의 민간화 혹은 시장화를 적극적으로 도모했

지만, 경제 분야와 같은 국가의 직접적인 재정적 기여는 하지 않으면서도 가부장주의에 입각한 사회보장제도의 수립을 적극적으로

유도하는 소위 ‘불개입의 개입’ 방식으로 국민들의 복지수요를 충족시키고자 했다(양재진, 2008: 332). 이처럼 박정희 정권은 정부

의 직접적인 재정지출이나 광범위한 조세를 통한 공적인 복지공급을 최소화하고, 대신에 고용주와 피고용인의 기여로 움직이는 사

회보험을 한국의 복지정책의 기본틀로 고안해냈으며(최영준, 2011: 14-5), 다양한 재정과 규제수단을 통한 비국가부문의 복지급여

를 장려하는 동시에 공적부조와 사회복지서비스 부문에서의 강한 가족책임주의(보족성의 원칙 견지)를 관철시켜 나갔던 것이다.

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동을 통해 대중들의 복지욕망을 충족시키는 ‘대안적’ 복지 생산의 역할을 담당할 수 있었을까?”

이에 대한 답변을 두 가지 측면에서 제시한다. 첫째로, 박정희 정권의 유신체제 이후 도시사회의

노동자들을 중심으로 한 대중들이 복지욕구와 복지요구의 충돌로 인해 갖게 된 복지욕망을 새롭게

활성화시키는 공간으로 교회가 기능했다는 점이다. 교회가 대중들의 복지욕망을 신앙적 욕망으로

전환시킴으로써 어떠한 복지적 기능을 수행했는가는 심리적 복지감(psychological well-being) 또

는 주관적 안녕감(Subjective well-being)의 충족이라는 관점에서 해석한다.

그리고 둘째로, 당시 한국교회는 도시사회에서 새롭게 형성된 연결망을 매개로 하여 ‘사회자

본’(social capital)의 축적과 확장이 일어났던 공간으로서, 동창회나 향우회와 같은 다른 연고집단

이나 여타의 자발적 결사체처럼 대중들의 복지욕구를 교회공동체라고 하는 연결망을 통해 충족시

키는 이른바 ‘연결망 복지’(network-based welfare)의 생산 주체 중 하나였다는 것이다. 특히 두

번째 기능과 관련하여 한국의 복지체제가 보수주의적인 성격을 유지하는 데 있어, 한국교회가 기

여한 부분을 집중적으로 논의한다. 예컨대, 한국교회는 공적인 국가복지의 강화에 대한 신자 대중

들의 욕구를 교회공동체가 하나의 사회적 연결망으로서 기능하는 과정에서 연결망 복지‧사회자본

의 제공을 통해 대리만족시켜주는 심리적 효과를 낳음으로써, 그 의도와 관계없이 공공적 대응을

요구하는 복지욕구를 가족이나 친족, 혹은 교회공동체를 통해 충족되어야 할 것, 즉 사적인 자원이

나 수단을 통해 획득되어야 할 것으로 인식시킴으로써 그 욕구를 공공적 공간에서 추방하는 탈-정

치화(depoliticization)의 효과를 수행했다는 해석을 제시한다. 이러한 해석을 통해 결론적으로 오

늘날 한국의 복지정치 구조에서 한국교회가 갖는 독특한 위상을 조명한다.

박정희 정권기 복지체제의 물적 토대와 대중들의 복지욕구

발전국가 이론을 전제로 하면서, 박정희 정권기의 복지체제를 가능하게 했던 다양한 물적 조건에

대한 의미 있는 분석을 시도한 대표적인 학자는 생산주의적 복지체제론(Productivist welfare

regime)을 견지하는 최영준이다(최영준, 2011). 그는 1960-80년대까지의 시기 동안에 생산주의 복

지정책과 복지정치가 형성되고 각인된 것으로 규정하고 있는데, 그가 설명하는 한국 복지체제의

특징은 기존의 발전주의적 복지체제론과 크게 다르지 않지만, 당시의 생산주의 복지체제를 가능하

게 했던 물적 조건을 제시한 것만큼은 내용에 대한 동의 여부를 떠나서 일단 그 자체로 주목할 만

하다.

그에 따르면 첫째, 안정적이고 높은 경제성장이 생산주의 체제에 대한 지지를 가능하게 하였

으며, 이면에는 권위주의적 발전주의 정부를 지지할 수 있는 우호적인 국제적 환경이 존재하고 있

었다. 둘째, 국내적으로 안정된 경제성장을 바탕으로 안정된 노동시장을 유지할 수 있었다. 일본과

유사하게 평생고용 완전고용 노동시장을 추구하였으며, 매우 낮은 실업률을 기록하고 있었다. 마지

막으로, 매우 젊은 인구 구조를 가지고 있었다. 65세 이상의 노인이 전체에서 차지하는 비중이 5%

에 이른 것이 1990년도이다. 이러한 물적 토대에 관한 최영준의 논거는 발전국가의 절정기였던 박

정희 정권 시대의 한국에서는 고도의 경제성장에 따른 완전고용 노동시장, 젊은 인구 구조, 풍부한

전일제 노동과 이에 더하여, 남성 중심적 가족구조, 활발한 사회적 이동으로 인해 빈곤을 개인적

책임으로 돌리는 사회적 분위기가 강했고, 실업급여나 근로 가능한 이들에 대한 공공부조의 필요

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성은 심각하게 논의되지 않았으며, 노령화 비율이 낮고 평균수명이 높지 않은 상황에서 연금을 비

롯한 국가복지에 대한 사회적 요구가 상대적으로 약할 수밖에 없었다는 해석으로 마무리된다. 요

컨대, 생산주의 체제가 제공하는 비교적 풍부한 물적 토대와 권위주의라는 정치적 토대 위에서, 당

시 한국 대중들의 복지에 대한 사회적 요구가 충분히 않았기 때문에 역으로 그러한 직위차별적이

고 노동배제적이며 잔여주의적인 성격이 강한 생산주의 복지체제가 별다른 저항이나 불만 없이도

성공적으로 지배를 관철시킬 수 있었다는 것이다.

그러나 이러한 설명은 여러 측면에서 심각한 난점들을 포함하고 있다. 우선 기본적인 전제와

논리 전개 방식의 문제를 지적할 수 있는데, 공식적인 복지정책이나 복지제도 마련에 대한 대중들

의 사회적 요구 또는 일반적인 공론화가 없었다는 지극히 단편적인 사회서비스 중심의 논리에 입

각하여, 그러한 요구의 부재는 곧 당시 사회의 풍부한(?) 물적 토대 때문이라는 매우 단순한 답변

을 내놓고 있는 것이다. 과연 다층적인 형태로 표현될 수밖에 없는 복지에 대한 대중들의 욕구를

공식적인 복지정책의 마련에 대한 일반적 요구의 차원으로 제한하여 해석하는 것이 정당할까?

모든 자본주의 사회구성체의 물적 토대는 생산양식, 즉 생산력과 생산관계의 총체로서 규정된

다고 했을 때, 그렇다면 박정희 정권기 한국 자본주의 체제의 물적 토대 역시 이러한 생산력의 수

준과 생산관계(즉, 계급관계)가 어떻게 조응하고 있는가를 살펴봐야 할 것이다. 실제로 그 시대의

노동계급이 처해 있었던 역사적 현실들을 살펴보면, 그들이 생산현장에서 맞닥뜨린 일차적인 고통

은 저임금과 장시간 노동과 산업재해와 같은 가장 기본적인 노동조건의 문제와 관계된 것들임을

알 수 있다. 이 얘기는 다시 박정희 정권의 집권 기간 자본주의 부문에 편입된 임금노동자, 그 중

에서도 특히 전체 산업별 노동자 구성의 추이로 봤을 때, 1960년 19.7%를 차지했으나 1980년

43.3%로 2배 이상 증가해 전체 노동자 가운데 최대집단으로 떠오른 제조업 노동자들에게 가장 절

박했던 복지욕구(welfare need)는 무엇이었는가를 진지하게 재검토해야 한다는 것을 의미한다.

박정희 정권기의 노동시장의 특성 중 가장 중요한 것은 1970년대 후반을 제외한 대부분의 시

기에 걸쳐 노동자들의 저임금이 지속되었다는 사실이다. 이는 생산성 측면과 생계비 측면 양쪽 모

두에서 그러한데, 윤진호에 따르면, 전 시기에 걸쳐 제조업 실질임금은 연평균 7.0% 상승한 반면,

제조업 생산성지수는 연평균 11.5% 상승해 후자가 전자를 압도했다. 즉, 박정희 시대 전 기간 생

산성 향상률을 하회하는 임금상승률과 이에 따른 노동소득분배의 저하 현상이 관찰된다는 것이다

(윤진호, 2012: 233-4). 뿐만 아니라 생계비 측면에서도 박정희 정권기의 저임금은 증명되는데, 가

구 전체의 취업자가 벌어들이는 임금을 모두 합해도 박정희 시대 대부분의 기간에 가구 전체의 생

계비를 충족하는 데는 턱없이 부족한 실정이었다.

한편, 저임금 못지않게 장시간 노동과 산업재해 역시 열악한 노동현장의 상황을 보여주는 대

표적인 지표이다. 당시의 수출 주도 공업화 전략 아래에서 수출기업들은 비용절감과 납기준수 등

을 위해 노동자들에게 초장시간 노동을 강요했고 산업재해 역시 빈번하게 일어났다. 노동시간의

경우 한국의 제조업 노동자의 주당 노동시간은 1963년의 50.3시간에서 1967년 58.8시간까지 증가

했다가 이후 다소 하락해 1969년 56.3시간을 기록한다. 이는 필리핀․싱가포르․태국 등 당시 아시

아의 다른 개발도상국에 비해서도 훨씬 긴 노동시간이었음을 알 수 있다. 1970년대의 노동 시간

통계는 대체로 주당 50시간 내외에서 등락하고 있다. 그러나 이러한 공식통계는 근로기준법에 명

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시된 주당 48시간, 그리고 최대 12시간까지의 초과근로규정을 명목적으로 지키기 위해 각 기업이

노동부에 보고한 공식적 노동시간일 뿐, 실제로는 일부 대기업을 제외한 대부분의 중소, 영세기업

에서는 하루 10시간 이상의 노동이 이루어졌고 휴일특근도 빈번했던 것으로 각종 실태조사에서 나

타난다. 이를 주당 평균으로 환산하면 적어도 주당 60~70시간 이상 노동이 이루어진 셈이다(윤진

호, 2012: 239). 공장노동은 노동자들에게 여가시간을 주지 않을 뿐만 아니라, 휴식을 취하거나 자

기유지에 필요한 최소한의 시간도 충분히 허락하지 않았다. 혹독한 공장노동은 너무나 큰 육체적

고통과 신체의 훼손을 가져왔으나 그 훼손을 치유할 시간조차 충분치 않았다. 이 시대 한국 공장

의 노동환경은 노동력 재생산에 필요한 최소한의 조건조차 보장하지 못했다(구해근, 2001: 90).

덧붙여, 산업화에 따른 노동강도와 노동속도의 증가로 인한 산업재해와 직업병의 증가 역시

노동자들의 건강과 안전을 위협하는 심각한 요인으로 작용했다. 공식통계만 보더라도 박정희 정권

말기가 되면 매년 13만 명의 노동자가 재해를 입고 그 가운데 1,500여 명이 사망하는 것으로 나

타난다(윤진호, 2012: 241-22). 특히 1976년 한국의 산업재해율은 미국과 영국의 5배였고, 일본의

15배였다. 대부분의 산업재해는 노동자들의 부주의한 작업습관에 따른 결과가 아니라 노동자들이

위험한 작업환경에 일하도록 강요당한 결과이다. 한국 제조업자들은 공장의 안전조치를 위한 투자

를 거의하지 않았다(구해근, 2001: 90-91). 그리고 적정한 근로시간과 안전한 작업환경 유지를 위

해 근로감독을 할 의무가 있는 정부도 이러한 열악한 노동현장의 현실을 외면했다(윤진호, 2012:

239).

이처럼 최저생계를 잇기에도 빠듯한 저임금, 따라서 최소한의 생계를 유지하기 위한 잔업, 특

근 등 장시간 노동의 반복, 안전장치가 미비한 작업환경 하에서의 산업재해와 직업병, 그리고 작업

현장에서의 감독자나 관리직 등에 의한 폭행, 폭언, 차별 등이 실제 노동현장에서 노동자들이 직면

해 있었던 현실이다. 따라서 그러한 현실에서 비롯된 노동자들의 복지욕구가 과연 어떤 형태의 복

지요구(welfare demand)로 표현될 수밖에 없었는가는 충분히 짐작 가능하다. 바로 임금상승과 노

동조건의 개선, 그리고 작업현장에서의 기본권 보장 및 안전대책 마련이었다. 노동자들의 복지요구

가 표현되는 주된 방식이 노동쟁의 혹은 노사분규라고 했을 때 박정희 정권기 노동쟁의는 임금,

수당, 퇴직금 등 주로 임금 인상과 같은 경제적 이익분쟁의 이유로 발생한 것이 압도적으로 높았

다는 것이 당시의 공식통계에서도 나타난다(문병주, 2005: 168).

그러므로 박정희 정권기 한국 사회의 물적 토대에 관한 최영준의 설명은 그 시대 노동현장의

상황(저임금․장시간 노동․기본권 유린․산업재해․직업병)이나, 그러한 열악한 상품화의 현실을 조건

으로 한 노동자들의 복지요구(임금인상․노동조건 개선․기본권 보장)의 진실을 제대로 포착하지 못

한 것이라 볼 수밖에 없다. 완전고용 노동시장, 젊은 인구 구조, 풍부한 전일제 노동과 이에 더하

여, 남성 중심적 가족구조, 활발한 사회적 이동과 같은 물적 토대가 이 시기의 상대적으로 약한 사

회보장정책 요구의 사회적 조건이었다는 그의 해석은 풍부한 전일제 노동과 활발한 사회적 이동이

라는 미사여구 뒤에 숨겨진 ‘계급의 숨겨진 상처’, 즉 낮은 임금과 열악한 노동조건의 문제에서 비

롯된 노동자들의 복지욕구나 복지요구의 실상과 괴리된 설명인 것이다. 따라서 당시 노동자들의

복지요구를 일반적으로 우리가 생각하는 사회보장제도나 사회복지서비스와 같은 차원의 문제로 이

해해선 곤란하다. 그들이 처해 있었던 열악한 노동현장의 상황에 입각하여 그들이 갖게 된 본능적

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인 복지욕구(welfare need)와 그것이 공식적으로 언어화되어 외부로 표현된 복지요구(welfare

demand), 그리고 이러한 복지욕구와 복지요구의 불일치로 인해 생겨나는 복지욕망(welfare

desire)을 각기 구별하여 접근해야 한다.

유신체제하 대중사회의 역설: 복지욕망의 탄생

주지하다시피 1960년대부터 일어난 산업화의 결과로 1970년대 이미 한국은 전 인구의 50%가 도

시에 몰려 사는 도시형 국가로 탈바꿈했다. 나아가 1960~70년대를 통해 경제활동인구와 취업자가

급속하게 증가하고 제조업 생산직 노동자를 중심으로 한 임금노동자계급이 급속하게 증가했으며

이들이 대도시와 공단에 집중되고 규모가 큰 사업체에서 결합노동자로 함께 일하는 등 ‘노동의 사

회화’가 크게 진전되었다. 이러한 산업화, 도시화, 노동의 사회화로 이어지는 일련의 변화는 박정

희가 견인한 근대화의 성과로 선전되었지만, 다른 한편으로는 심각한 사회정치적 위기를 초래하는

것이기도 했다. 적어도 1960년대에만 해도 박정희 정권의 경제개발 추진은 상당한 성과를 거두어

급속한 도시화, 대중사회의 형성을 보여주었고 한편으로는 선거에서 정권에 대한 지지율 상승으로

나타나기도 했다. 그러나 이러한 ‘발전’의 성과는 박정희 체제에게 당장의 승리를 가능케 했지만,

그것이 미래의 승리를 보장하리란 확신은커녕 패배를 걱정해야만 하는 양상이었다. 그것은 곧 현

재의 승리가 미래의 패배일 수 있는 역설적인 것이었다. 1970년대 들어 도시를 중심으로 한 대중

사회의 형성과 함께 사회적 균열의 조짐이 도처에서 나타나고 있었던 것이다. 특히 대통령 선거가

진행되고 광주대단지 사건이 발생한 1971년은 특기할만한 연도였다. 박정희 본인조차도 그 해에는

“정치인의 무책임한 선동, 과격한 노동쟁의, 학생 데모, 집단 난동 등이 안보 체제를 크게 약화시

켰음”을 강조했을 정도였다(황병주, 2012: 38).

예컨대, 전태일 분신 사건의 여파로 1970년 165건에 불과했던 노사분규 발생건수가 1971년에

는 무려 1,656건으로 10배나 폭증했다. 또한 8월에는 광주 대단지 사건, 9월에는 한진상사 파월

노동자들의 KAL 빌딩 방화사건이 일어났다. 자본-임노동 관계의 전면화와 그에 따른 새로운 사회

적 적대의 문제설정은 계층, 계급의 문제이자 도시-농촌의 문제였다. 발전의 효과가 도시로 집중

되었음에도 노동자들을 중심으로 한 도시대중들은 박정희 정권에 그리 우호적이지 않았다. 노동자

들에게 있어 도시는 새로운 기회의 공간이긴 했지만 그만큼 치열한 경쟁과 가혹한 삶의 조건을 강

요하는 폭력적인 공간이기도 했다. 도시주민의 대다수를 이루는 하층민들에게 발전의 효과는 쉽게

느껴지지 않았고 불평등한 재분배 메커니즘 속에 상대적 박탈감은 더욱 강렬했다. 이처럼 지난 60

년대의 발전과정 속에 소외되었던 노동자-도시 대중들의 불만이 매우 폭력적인 방식으로 터져 나

온 예가 바로 전태일 분신(및 뒤이어 폭발적으로 증가한 노동쟁의), 그리고 광주대단지 사건과 같

은 도시하층민들의 봉기였다.

그러나 1970년대 도시의 노동자 대중들의 적극적인 복지요구는 71년의 비상태사태선언, 국가

보위법제정, 그리고 72년의 유신과 73년의 노동관계법 개선(단체교섭권 및 단체행동권 전면금지)

등으로 일관한 유신정권에 의해 번번이 좌절되었다. 그렇게 유신정권은 노동자들의 직접적인 복지

요구는 무시하면서도, 한편으로는 지배체제의 도덕적 정당성을 확보하기 위해 중화학공업의 성공

과 더불어 형성된 일부 재벌 대기업 중심 생산체제의 요구에 부합하는 최소한의 사회보장제도였던

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의료보험을 시행했다. 결과적으로 본다면, 정책결정 과정에서 노동자들의 직접적인 복지요구는 지

속적이고 체계적으로 배제되었던 것이다. 요컨대, 박정희 정권의 출범과 더불어 한국사회에 급속한

산업화가 시작되었고, 산업화는 필연적으로 도시화와 동반된 노동의 사회화를 수반했다. 이때 노동

의 사회화란 곧 도시의 노동자 대중들이 처절한 상품화의 현실에 놓이게 됨을 의미했고, 그러한

1960년대 한국 자본주의의 물적 토대 위에서 노동자들의 생존권 투쟁과 같은 근본적인 복지욕구

가 점차 생성되어 나갔던 것이다. 그리고 그것이 1970년대 들어 집단적인 복지요구로 발전되면서

마침내 전태일 분신으로 상징되는 노동쟁의로 마침내 폭발했다. 이와 같은 자본주의적 관계의 전

면화 속에서 산업화는 새로운 사회적 적대의 문제설정을 초래했고, 박정희 정권에 대한 비판-비협

조세력의 광범위한 결집으로 이어지게 된 것이다. 이러한 일련의 흐름 속에서 박정희 정권은 권위

주의적 독재체제를 더욱 강화한 ‘10월 유신’으로 응답했고, 바로 그 유신체제하에서 발전주의적 복

지체제의 실질적 틀이 잡힌 것이다.

따라서 70년대 유신체제 하에서 국가에 의한 일체의 법률적․정책적․행정적 보호를 받지 못할

뿐만 아니라 오히려 극히 억압적인 노동정책과 노동행정에 눌려 있던 노동자들의 복지욕구는 분신

자살과 같은 개인 차원의 극단적인 방식의 항거, 합법적 테두리 밖에서 폭력적 양상을 띤 과격한

시위, 또는 민주적인 노조 건설을 위한 조직적인 투쟁, 그밖에 기존 노동조합의 임금 및 노동조건

개선투쟁, 휴폐업과 해고반대 투쟁의 형태로 다양하게 전개되었던 것이다. 그리고 이러한 현장 노

동자들의 투쟁을 지원하고 조력했던 일단의 그룹 가운데 도시산업선교회나 가톨릭 노동청년회와

같은 진보적 교회단체들이 존재했다. 뿐만 아니라 유신체제 수립 이후 침체되어 있었다가 1974년

세계경제공황의 여파로 국내 경제가 불황에 직면하자, 경제문제와 복지정책에 관한 민주화운동세

력의 비판과 요구도 강하게 일어났다(허은, 2010: 237).

그러나 이처럼 적극적인 저항과 성명의 형태로 복지요구를 전화시켜 나갔던 노동자들과 민주

화운동세력의 다른 한편에는 그러한 요구가 극심한 탄압에 부딪혀 번번이 좌절되는 것을 직간접적

으로 확인하면서 욕구와 요구 사이의 간극을 체험하고 있었던 다수의 평범한 노동자들 및 도시 대

중들이 함께 존재하고 있었다. 사실 유신체제 기간 동안 아무리 많은 아래로부터의 저항이 도시

노동자들을 중심으로 일어났다 해도, 여전히 도시사회의 다수를 차지하는 도시빈민들과 중간계급

은 박정희 정권을 묵시적으로 지지하거나, 또는 지지하지 않더라도 저항에는 동참하지 않는 경우

가 더 많았다. 물론 그들이 적극적으로 자신들의 복지요구를 저항의 형태로 표현하지 않았다고 해

서, 그들에게 복지욕구조차 없었다고 볼 수는 없을 것이다. 박정희 정권기의 물적 토대를 고려해보

건대, 당시 도시 노동 대중들의 복지욕구가 충만했다는 것은 의심의 여지가 없다. 그들의 복지욕구

는 어떻게든 공식적인 복지요구를 통해서 표현되고 충족되어야 하는 것이었지만 당시의 조건에서

그 충족은 늘 불충분한 상태였다. 즉 복지욕구와 복지요구 사이에는 메울 수 없는 간극이 항상 존

재하고 있었다는 것이다.

그리고 이렇게 복지욕구와 복지요구 사이의 간극이 지속될 때, 복지요구로 충족되지 못한 복

지욕구는 점차 복지욕망(welfare desire)으로 변해가기 마련이다. 이미 도시사회의 노동자 대중들

은 농촌 사회의 봉건적 성격으로부터 해방되어 보다 개성을 가진 인간, 평등한 권리의식 및 정치

적으로는 주권자의 의식을 가진 시민으로 변해가고 있었기 때문이다. 이러한 변화가 단기간에 일

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어난 것은 결코 아니지만 적어도 산업화 과정에서 자본주의 질서로의 편입이 대중들로 하여금 이

러한 방향으로의 변화를 추동해낸 것 또한 분명하다. 더욱이 고도성장 과정에서 국가와 자본은 생

산력의 발전을 위해 노동자들을 교육, 훈련시키고 그 능력을 개발하게 만들었는데, 이 과정에서 다

면적인 욕구와 능력을 가진 ‘사회적 인간’이 출현할 수밖에 없었다. 노동자들의 성격도 변화해 핵

심 연령층 노동자가 증가하고 교육 수준이 상승하는 등 질적 상승이 이루어졌다(윤진호, 2012:

247). 그리하여 노동현장에서의 경제적 이익이나 생존권과 관련된 복지욕구와는 종류가 다른 복지

욕구들, 이를테면 주거나 출산, 교육, 의료, 젠더, 노후, 문화, 자산형성 등 말 그대로 사회적 삶에

대한 다양한 욕구들이 끊임없이 생겨나게 되었는데, 이는 분명 자본축적에 따른 ‘자본의 문명화 작

용’ 및 ‘노동의 사회화’ 과정의 필연적인 산물이었다.

상품화의 현실이 노동현장의 위기조건으로 나타나는 가운데 생성된 복지욕구가 노동쟁의와 같

은 사회적 언어의 형식을 띤 복지요구로 전환되었지만, 그 요구는 국가나 기업에 가로 막혀 좌절

될 수밖에 없었는데, 복지욕망은 바로 이렇게 본능적으로 생성되는 복지욕구와 현실에서 억압된

복지요구 사이의 괴리 혹은 분열로 인해 나타났다. 그런데 박정희 정권이 발전주의 복지체제를 포

기하지 않는 한 노동자들의 복지욕구와 복지요구의 불일치는 피할 수 없는 것이었고, 그들은 결국

이 분열을 존재의 결핍으로 체험하게 된다. 복지요구가 국가와 기업에 가로막혀 충족되지 않은 채

로 남게 되고, 그 잔여가 바로 복지욕망이 된 것이다. 억압과 통제 앞에서 요구의 형태로는 더 이

상 표현될 수 없게 된 복지욕구는 그렇게 소외되고 좌절된 상태 그 자체로 고착되어 대중들의 무

의식 속에 자리 잡게 된다. 그런데 복지요구로 표현하는 것이 좌절된 복지욕구의 잔여로서 복지욕

망이 최초의 복지욕구나 그 이전의 복지요구와 다른 것은 그것의 진정한 본성이 더 이상 특정한

충족의 대상을 찾아다니지 않게 된다는 점이다. 사회적인 요구로 표현할 수도 없고, 표현해서도 안

되며, 설령 금지와 통제를 뚫고 표현하는 데 성공해도 돌아오는 것은 가혹한 억압뿐이며, 그래서

끝내 충족될 수 없다는 것을 알아버린 좌절된 복지요구의 찌꺼기는 이제 그 대상을 국가나 기업이

아닌 자기 자신으로 되돌려 운동하게 된다. 복지요구처럼 ‘충족되기’를 기대하며 표현되는 것이 아

니라, 복지욕망의 실현은 요구와 욕구 사이의 영원한 분열을 유지하면서, 욕망을 끊임없이 재생하

는 활동 그 자체에 있게 되고, 그러한 욕망을 활발히 재생할 수 있는 새로운 공간을 찾아 끊임없

이 배회하게 된 것이다.

물론 복지욕구와 복지요구 사이의 충돌로부터 생겨난 그 심리적 찌꺼기가 좌절된 욕망의 형태

로 계속 남아 있었던 도시의 노동자들 혹은 대중들에게 복지요구의 형태는 아니면서도, 복지욕망

을 다른 생산적인 에너지로 전화하여 마음껏 발산할 수 있도록 허용한 공간이 당시 그리 많진 않

았을 것이다. 박정희 정권은 대중매체를 통한 히피문화의 확산으로 청년문화가 유행하자 그것을

사회윤리와 건전한 국민정신을 파괴하는 퇴폐풍조로 규정해 단속을 가해버렸을 정도이니, 과연 당

시 대중들이 자신들의 복지욕망을 긍정적으로 표현할 수 있는 공간이 얼마나 있었겠는가. 대중문

화조차도 국가의 개입과 검열을 당해야 했다는 사실은 박정희 정권이 얼마나 대중들의 복지욕구가

복지요구로 전화되는 것을 두려워했는가를 잘 보여주는 것이다. 그렇게 복지요구는 물론이고 복지

욕망의 실행조차도 국가에 의해 끊임없이 검열당하고 통제받아야 했던 곳, 그래서 적절한 투입의

대상조차 찾지 못한 욕망들이 끊임없이 부유하고 있었던 곳이 바로 도시라는 공간이었다. 교회는

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이러한 도시세계에서 새로운 욕망 충족의 공간으로 대중에 의해 재발견된다.

신앙을 통한 복지욕망의 활성화와 구원을 향한 복지요구의 전환

종교사회학자 강인철은 박정희 시대의 교회-국가 관계가 보여준 복합성과 관련하여 흥미로운 주장

을 펼친 바 있는데, 그것은 박정희 정권기 국가에 대해 일관된 저항과 협력의 입장을 취한 개신교

세력은 ‘상대적으로 소수’였다는 사실이다. 다시 말해 비교적 일관되게 ‘갈등’ 내지는 ‘저항’의 태

도를 취한 한국기독교교회협의회(KNCC) 내에서의 진보적 소수파 일부와 역시 비교적 일관되게

‘협력’ 내지는 ‘적극적 동조’의 태도를 취한 국제기독교연합회 한국지부(ICCCK)와 한국예수교협의

회(KCCC) 산하의 교회들을 전부 합치더라도 국가에 대해 일관된 저항과 협력의 입장을 취한 개신

교 세력은 사실상 전체 개신교 인구로 봤을 때 극히 소수에 지나지 않는다는 것이다(강인철,

2007). 따라서 그의 주장대로 하자면, 박정희 정권기에는 국가에 대한 저항 혹은 협력이라는 어느

한 극단으로 확연히 쏠리지 않는 두터운 개신교 신자층, 즉 갈등과 협력이 공존하면서 정치적 태

도의 일관성을 찾기 힘든 넓은 ‘회색지대’가 존재했다는 것이다.

이처럼 적극적 저항과 적극적 협력의 양극단 사이의 회색지대에 존재하던 한국교회의 다수의

일반적인 도시신자들은 대부분 체제에 대해 명시적으로 동의하지도 저항하지도 않으면서 단지 ‘신

앙’과 ‘구원’이라는 거룩한 가치에 몰두하는 모습을 보여주었고, 간혹 국민의 일원으로서 정권의

복지정책에 때로는 지지를 보내고 때로는 불만을 느끼기도 했지만 기본적으로 그 실상을 잘 알지

도 못했고, 또 알려고 노력하지도 않게 된다. 하지만 그러한 무관심으로 표현되는 신자 대중들의

‘부정적 동의’조차도 당시의 복지체제에 대해 대중들이 보여준 반응의 일부였다. 좀 더 적극적으로

해석하면, 정치에 대한 신자 대중들의 무관심은 박정희 정권의 발전주의 프로젝트가 초래하고 있

는 모든 사회적 고통과 삶의 위기에 대해 그 어떤 정치적 언어로도 이의를 제기하거나 해결을 요

구할 수 없었던 상황에서, 침묵 가운데 쌓여만 가던 욕구와 불만을 다른 대상에 전가함으로써 얻

게 된 심리적 자유의 다른 이름일 수도 있다. 또 달리 보자면, 그러한 무관심은 정치적인 복지요구

에 대해서는 회피일지 모르지만, 본능적인 복지욕구에 대해서는 대안적인 해소의 방법을 찾은 것

일지도 모른다. 어쨌든 결과적으로는 그러한 대중들의 무관심을 기반으로 하여 박정희 정권기의

발전주의 복지체제가 작동할 수 있었다는 사실이 중요하다. 이 글 역시 강인철의 주장을 따라서

바로 그러한 넓은 ‘회색지대’의 개신교 신자층 및 개신교회들을 주로 염두에 두고 도시사회의 한국

교회의 복지적 기능을 살펴보려 한다.

한국교회 사회복지선교의 역사를 기술할 때 일반적으로 박정희 정권기는 해방 이후부터 60년

대 후반까지 이어지는 외원단체에 의한 해외원조기와 70년대와 80년대 중반까지의 자립기 혹은

발전준비기에 모두 걸쳐 있다(차옥연, 1999; 노치준, 2000; 김은섭, 2008). 이러한 시기 구분에 따

르자면, 유신체제 성립 이전의 1960년대와 유신체제 성립 이후의 1970년대를 모두 합쳐서 보더라

도, 박정희 정권기에는 아직 교회 바깥의 공간을 중심으로 전개되는 교회의 사회복지적 실천이 지

극히 미미한 수준이었다는 것이다. 물론 도시산업선교회나 KNCC 내부의 진보적 소수파를 중심으

로 한 일부 교회들이 적극적인 사회선교를 수행하고 있었던 것도 사실이다. 그러나 위에서 언급한

한국교회의 다수를 차지하는 회색지대의 교회들이나 국가에 대해 적극적인 협력의 태도를 취했던

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보수적 소수파들은 교회성장 중심의 선교전략을 취했지, 아직 교회 자체의 자원을 동원한 사회복

지실천이나 사회선교활동에 적극적으로 나서진 않고 있었다. 1970년대 들어 외원단체들이 한국에

서 철수하기 시작하면서, 그동안 외원으로 운영되던 사회복지시설들이 국가로부터 공비지원을 받

을 수 있고, 국가에 의한 복지조치 위탁에 대한 수탁의무가 있으며, 국가의 특별감독을 받는 특수

법인, 즉 사회복지법인으로 발전하게 되었다. 그런데 이 과정에서 과거 외국교회나 외국선교단체와

협력하여 사회복지사업에 참여해왔던 교회들이 서서히 사회복지선교의 현장에서 물러나게 된다.

그리하여 70년대 중반에 이르면 한국의 사회복지사업의 주역은 정부의 통제를 받는 민간사회

복지단체들이 되고, 한국교회는 사회복지현장에서의 제대로 역할을 못 하고 있다는 인식이 일반사

회나 교회내부에서 팽배하게 된다(차옥연, 1999: 72-3). 박정희 정권기 개신교인들의 사회봉사의

주된 참여 방식은 정부나 민간단체의 사회사업기관에 개인적으로 참여하는 봉사였지 교회조직이나

교회가 설립한 사회복지기관을 통한 공식적인 의미의 사회복지선교는 아니었던 것이다. 그러나 이

러한 평가가 곧 박정희 정권기 발전주의 복지체제의 형성에 있어 한국교회의 역할이 상대적으로

미미했다는 것을 의미하진 않는다. 오히려 이 시기 한국교회의 다수가 교회 외부의 공간에서 별다

른 복지적 활동을 전개하지 않았다는 것이야말로 당시의 발전주의 복지체제 형성과정에 교회가 깊

이 관여했음을 역설적으로 시사하기 때문이다. 다시 말해, 이 시기 한국의 발전주의적 복지체제가

작동하는 과정에서 교회라는 집단 자체가 하나의 복지 공급의 주체이자 복지 생산의 장소로 기능

하고 있었다는 것이다.

그렇다면 한국교회는 어떤 활동을 통해 대중들의 복지욕망을 충족시키는 ‘대안적’ 복지 생산의

역할을 담당할 수 있었을까? 두 가지 측면에서 해석이 가능하다. 첫째로, 앞 절에서 살펴본 것처

럼 유신체제 이후 도시사회의 노동자들을 중심으로 한 대중들이 복지욕구와 복지요구의 충돌로 인

해 갖게 된 복지욕망을 새롭게 활성화시키는 공간으로 교회가 기능했다는 점이다. 교회가 대중들

의 복지욕망을 신앙적 욕망으로 전환시킴으로써 어떠한 복지적 기능을 수행했는가는 심리적 복지

감 또는 주관적 안녕감의 충족이라는 관점에서 해석해 볼 수 있을 것이다. 그리고 둘째로, 당시 한

국교회는 도시사회에서 새롭게 형성된 연결망을 매개로 하여 ‘사회자본’(social capital)의 축적과

확장이 일어났던 공간으로서, 동창회나 향우회와 같은 다른 연고집단이나 여타의 자발적 결사체처

럼 대중들의 복지욕구를 교회공동체라고 하는 연결망을 통해 충족시키는 이른바 ‘연결망 복지’

(network-based welfare)의 생산 주체 중 하나였다는 것이다.

일단 먼저, 한국교회가 실현의 대상을 찾지 못해 부유하던 대중들의 복지욕망을 신앙적 욕망

으로 전환시켜 욕구해소의 새로운 계기를 제공한 측면부터 살펴보자. 농촌경제의 몰락과 피폐화를

대가로 하여 추진된 산업화의 물결이 일기 시작했던 1960년대, 도시로 몰려든 이농민들의 대부분

은 산동네와 이른바 무허가 판자촌에 집단적으로 거주하여 생계의 터전을 닦게 되었다. 박정희 정

권의 발전주의 프로젝트의 직접적 피해자인 이농민들이 도시빈민으로 전환된 것이다. 저학력과 미

숙련의 상태에 있었던 중장년층 이농민 가장들은 근대적 산업화에 필요한 노동력에 적합하지 못했

다. 더욱이 1960년대 제조업에서도 신규 노동력을 모두 흡수할 만한 여력이 없었다. 이농민 가구

의 젊은 연령층에 속하는 일부 사람들만 산업노동자로 취업할 수 있었고, 이농민 가장들은 소규모

의 영세상이나 행상․노점상․건설노동과 같은 비공식 부문에 종사하며 생계를 유지할 수밖에 없었

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다. 그러나 이때의 국가경제의 정책방향은 내부적인 성장이나 서민경제의 안정화보다는 수출 위주

의 고도성장에 맞춰져 있었다(최인기, 2012: 38).

기초생활을 위한 최소한의 조건조차도 갖추어지지 않은 주거지와 노동 조건 속에서 혹독한 삶

을 살아가야 했던 사람들, 학대와 폭력이 난무한 야만적 도시 생활 속으로 내던져진 사람들에게

국가는 거의 아무런 기회도 제공하지 않았고, 단지 그들을 산업예비군으로 하는 저임금 체제를 유

지하는 데만 급급했다. 바로 이들에게 교회가 다가간 것이다(김진호, 2012: 75). 물론 대중들 역시

불공평한 경제구조 속에서 느끼는 욕구불만을 해소하기 위해서 자기 발로 직접 교회를 찾았을 것

이다. 국가가 주도하는 발전주의 프로젝트에 동원되고 있으면서도 정작 그 발전의 성과에 합당한

대가를 받지 못하며 살아가던 대중들에게 분출구가 필요했기 때문이다. 하지만 그런 억눌린 복지

욕구의 분출구는 결코 국가에 직접적으로 도전하는 정치적인 언어나 행위로 제공되어선 안 되었

다. 바로 이때, 한국교회는 복지욕구와 복지요구가 결코 일치할 수 없는 현실로부터 발생한 당시

대중들의 내면적 결핍을 정확히 간파하고 있었고, 이러한 대중들의 욕구불만과 억압된 분노를 분

출시킬 수 있는 다양한 담론과 기술적 장치들을 대중전도집회나 부흥집회에서 활용했다(하도균,

2011).

1970년대, 흔히 유신시대라고 불리는 폭압적인 독재의 시대였던 박정희 정권 후반기는 역설적

이게도 한국교회의 역사에서 부흥운동이 가장 활발하게 일어난 시기이기도 했다. 이때 각 개교회,

지방회나 노회, 그리고 교단이 경쟁적으로 부흥전도집회를 열었다. 그리고 초교파적인 대규모 집회

도 서울과 지방에서 여러 차례 개최되었다. 1973년 5월 16일부터 6월 3일까지 지방 주요 도시와

서울에서 “5천만을 그리스도에게”라는 주제로 개최된 빌리 그레이함(Billy Graham) 전도 집회와

1974년 8월에 열린 대학생선교회(CCC) 주최의 엑스플로 ’74, 그리고 1977년 8월에는 32개 교단

이 연합하여 600여 명의 강사를 동원했던 ‘77민족 복음화성회’는 각각 참가자가 연인원 수백만 명

에 달한 대규모 대중동원 이벤트였다.

1970년대 고도성장기의 한국교회의 주류가 이러한 대중전도집회나 부흥집회를 통해 대중들에

게 선사했던 ‘구원’과 ‘신앙’의 축복은 경제 이외에 이익의 분배가 충분히 이루어지지 않아 상대적

박탈감을 느낀 사람들에게 현세적‧물질적 축복을 약속하며 강력한 보상적 기제로 작동했다. 그래서

물질적 차원에서 상대적 박탈감을 느끼는 사람들을 위로하고 성공하도록 동기유발하며, 그들에게

물질적 축복을 약속했던 교회일수록 더 많은 사람들을 유인할 수 있었다. 적극적 사고, 성공의 복

음, 풍요의 복음 등 자본주의와 된 축복의 메시지는 이 시기에 크게 번창한 교회에서 공통적으로

들을 수 있는 설교 내용이었다. 이처럼 박정희 체제하의 도시사회 속에서 급성장한 한국교회는 그

시대 노동자들 혹은 도시하층민들의 억압된 복지욕망을 있는 그대로 긍정하고 격려하며 더욱 자극

하여 신앙적 열정으로 전환시키는 데 성공함으로써, 대중들의 에너지를 자기 성장의 동력으로 흡

수했던 대표적인 집단이었다. 한국교회는 당시 어떠한 체제비판적인 복지요구로도 전화되지 못한

채 억압된 형태 그대로 남아 고착되어 버린 대중들의 복지욕망을 ‘삼박자 구원’과 같은 신앙적 욕

망으로 전환시켜 그들의 욕구가 교회생활을 통해 해소될 수 있는 길을 제시했던 것이다. 그리고

이 과정에서 필연적으로 나타난 결과는 개인의 탈-정치화(depoliticization)였다. 개인들은 국가나

시민사회가 아닌 교회공동체의 신도 일원으로 자리매김 됨에 따라 ‘국민’ 또는 ‘시민’이 아닌 다른

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종류의 주체로 살아가도록 요청되었고 따라서 국가의 통치에 관심을 갖는 정치적 행위들이 신도들

에게는 점차 비종교적인 세속적 행위로 여겨졌다. 박정희 체제 하에서 교회공동체에 속한 개인들

은 이러한 방식으로 정치적 주권자로서 국민이나 시민이기 이전에 성도(聖徒) 또는 신자(信者)로서

자신들의 정체성을 규정해나갔고, 그 결과 교회와 국가 또는 종교와 정치를 분리시키면서 정치의

영역에 대해 무관심한 태도를 보여주게 된 것이다.

그런데 1970년대 유신정권의 발전주의 담론 전략과 한국교회의 성장주의 담론 전략이 아무리

유사한 논리구조를 갖고 있었다 하더라도, 국가가 선전하던 발전주의 이데올로기를 교회가 세속의

언어 그대로 반복하여 신도들에게 전달했다고 볼 수는 없다. 아무리 노골적인 지배 이데올로기를

반영하고 있을지라도, 가급적이면 교회의 메시지는 기독교적 언어로 번역되거나 신앙적 가치로 재

해석되는 과정을 거쳐서 대중들에게 전달되었다. 아마 그러한 번역 및 재해석의 대표적인 인물이

바로 박정희 정권기의 도시화 현상에 가장 성공적으로 적응한 목회 모델로 평가받는 조용기 목사

일 것이다(박종현, 2009: 278). 그의 사상의 핵심이 되는 ‘삼중축복’(삼박자 구원)과 ‘오중복음’이

박정희 정권기의 발전주의 이데올로기와 깊이 상통한다는 것은 이미 일반화된 상식이다. 특히 조

용기의 긍정의 신학이 주창했던 “하면 된다, 할 수 있다, 해보자”의 메시지가 대중동원의 형태로

이루어진 박정희 정권의 대표적인 대중정치의 사례로 꼽히는 새마을운동의 핵심적인 슬로건, “잘

살아 보세” 혹은 “잘 살 수 있다”, “우리도 할 수 있다”로 직결된다는 것도 역시 익히 알려진 사

실이다. 그러나 한편으로, 조용기가 신앙의 효과를 경제적 축복에만 배타적으로 한정해서 주장하지

않았음을 유념해야 한다.

예컨대, 그의 삼중축복의 내용은 영혼의 축복, 범사의 축복, 육체의 축복으로 구성되는데, 여

기서 언제나 다른 두 축복의 전제가 되는 것은 영혼의 축복으로서, 그러한 하나님 중심의 신앙적

인 삶이 전제가 되어야만 나머지 범사의 축복과 육체의 축복도 따라오는 것으로 설명된다. 기존의

보수적 신앙이 후자를 기복주의라는 이름으로 경원시했지만, 조용기는 육체적 치유와 물질적 풍요

로 상징되는 사회․경제적 안전에 대한 대중들의 순수한 욕구를 전면적으로 긍정했다. 다만, 전인적

구원이라는 논리 하에, 신앙적 영역의 종교적 성취(영혼의 잘됨)에 집중할 때 언제나 그러한 욕구

들의 충족도 함께 따라오는 축복인 것처럼 설명함으로써, 대중들의 ‘구원’에 대한 몰두를 극대화시

키고 그 몰입이 표현되는 공간으로서 교회에 대한 헌신까지 유도했다. 조용기는 복지욕구와 복지

요구의 충돌로 인해 생겨난 대중들의 복지욕망이 그 에너지를 적극적으로 투입할 수 있는 새로운

대상과 논리를 제시했던 것이다. 바로 ‘하나님’이라는 이름의 무조건적인 축복의 제공자와 ‘삼박자

구원’이라는 이름의 철저히 비정치적이면서 경제적으로는 건전한 욕망 말이다.

아울러 그의 사상을 최종적으로 압축한 4차원 영성론에서 제시된 ‘바라봄의 법칙’과 그 실천

방법도 주목할 만하다(조용기, 2010). ‘바라봄의 법칙’이란 자신의 소망을 구체적으로 상상하며 그

것을 실체적으로 기도하고 묵상할 때 반드시 실현된다는 논리이다. 이는 박명수가 지적한 것처럼

중세의 관상 기도의 현대판이라고 할 수 있다(박명수, 2003). 다만 차이가 있다면 중세 수도원의

관상 기도가 그리스도를 닮기 위해 바라보았다면 조용기의 4차원 영성에서 바라봄은 종교적 요소

외에도 현실적 욕구를 포괄하는 자기 성취를 바라봄을 의미한다는 점이다. 요컨대 종교적 욕구이

건 물질적․현실적 욕구이건 그 종류와 관계없이 그것들은 모두 ‘바라봄’이라고 하는 기도의 형태로

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만 표현될 수 있다는 것이다. 욕구가 요구로 전화될 수 있는 유일한 방법은 종교적 형태의 ‘바라

봄’이지, 여타의 그 어떤 정치적인 행위가 될 수 없는 것이다.2

이처럼 조용기의 삼중축복과 4차원 영성론은 신자들의 경제적 풍요와 육체적 치유 등에 정향

된 본능적인 복지욕구를 결코 부정하거나 정죄하지 않으면서도, 그 욕구의 표출과 충족에 대한 갈

망을 내용적으로나 방법론적으로 수정한 신학담론이라 할 수 있다. 즉, 대중들의 복지욕구가 내용

의 차원에선 신앙적 욕망(삼중축복)으로, 방법적 차원에선 종교적 요구(바라봄의 기도)를 통해서만

표현되도록 함으로써, 그동안 복지욕구와 복지요구의 불일치로 인해 발생한 심리적 결핍을 새로운

에너지로 채우는 효과를 낳은 것이다. 이처럼 조용기의 순복음 영성으로 상징되는 박정희 정권기

한국교회의 성장주의적 신앙담론은 경제적 풍요나 질병의 치유, 신분의 상승과 같은 대중들의 일

상적인 삶의 욕구들을 억압하지 않으면서도, 그것을 철저하게 신앙적 욕망과 종교적 요구의 형태

로 필터링함으로써, 그들이 겪고 있었던 복지욕구와 복지요구의 괴리를 극복할 수 있는 ‘심리적 복

지감’3을 제공했다. 당시의 한국교회는 사회적 고통의 담지자들에게 고통으로부터의 해방을 약속함

으로써, 많은 이들에게 주관적 차원의 행복감과 자기실현의 기회를 제공할 수 있었던 것이다(김진

호, 2012: 79).

그런데 이러한 결과가 비록 현상적으로만 보면 교회 안에서 행복을 찾았던 대중들이 개발독재

체제의 헤게모니 프로젝트에 완전히 포섭된 듯 보이나, 실제로 확인되는 경향은 체제에 대한 대중

의 ‘무관심’이었다는 것을 다시 한 번 상기할 필요가 있다. 예컨대, 순복음교회에서 발간한 평신도

잡지 《신앙계》에 수록된 신자들의 간증들을 연구한 박명수에 따르자면, 박정희 정권기 조용기의

설교에 감화되어 순복음교회에 입교한 사람들의 동기는 대부분 육체적 질병이나 사업의 실패와 같

은 현실적인 위기에서 그 위기를 해결하려는 것이었다(박명수, 2004: 184). 그는 이런 입교동기가

신앙생활을 사회개혁의 수단으로 보고 입교한 것과는 구별됨을 보여준다고 주장하지만, 반대로 그

만큼 삶의 위기를 정치적 요구나 사회운동과 같은 방법으로 해결할 수 있다는 희망 자체를 대중들

이 상실했다는 증거로 해석할 수도 있다. 즉, 원래부터 순수하게 신앙적 희망만 갖고 있었기 때문

에 그들이 순복음교회를 찾은 것이라기보다는, 자신들이 갖고 있는 문제가 복지제도나 사회정책의

차원에선 요구될 수도 해결될 수도 없다는 좌절감이 결국 신앙을 통한 문제 해결 외에는 다른 어

2 앞에서도 복지에 대한 대중들의 본능적인 욕구가 ‘사회적인 언어’(요구)로 표현될 때 억압에 부딪혀 불가피하게 어긋나는 부분이 발

생하면서 이것이 곧 복지욕망을 이루게 된다고 주장했는데, 이처럼 복지욕망이 복지요구에서 복지욕구를 뺀 차이로 정의된다는 것

은 그것이 욕구나 요구처럼 적극적으로 실체적으로 파악할 수 있는 상태로서가 아니라 영원히 채워질 수 없는 결여의 관점에서 부

정적으로 비실체적으로 접근될 수밖에 없음을 의미한다. 즉, 대중들의 복지욕망은 복지욕구와 복지요구가 완전히 일치할 수 없다

는 사실로부터 발생하는 결여의 체험에서 생겨나고 유지된다. 따라서 복지욕망은 복지욕구와 복지요구를 통해선 결코 충족될 수

없으므로 끊임없이 새로운 무언가를 찾아야 하는 대중들의 결여 상태를 지칭한다. 종교는 그러한 결여를 더 이상 부정적인 의미의

결핍이 아니라 신의 은총이 기대되는 가능성의 기회구조로 활용하는 것이다.

3 주관적 안녕감으로도 번역되는 심리적 복지감은 개인이 자신의 생활에서 경험하는 객관적인 상황에 대한 주관적이고 긍정적인 정서

로서 삶의 질에 대한 행복 또는 만족 정도를 의미한다(김강호, 2010: 83-4). 심리적 복지감의 개념에 대해선 분야나 학자마다 조금

씩 다르게 규정하고 있지만, 대체로 인간이 느끼는 감정에 대한 주관적 판단에서 비롯된다는 데 동의가 이루어지고 있다. 사회복

지학 분야에서는 심리적 복지감에 영향을 미치는 변인으로 공식적인 복지제도가 아닌 비공식적 복지부문, 예컨대 가족, 생활모임,

자조집단, 공동활동, 사회적 지지, 여가활동, 사회적 관계망, 자아존중감 등을 거론한다. 최근에는 보다 일반화된 사회과학의 개념

으로서 ‘사회자본’과 심리적 복지감의 관계에 대한 연구들이 제출되고 있다(한세희 외, 2010).

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떤 방식에 대해서도 ‘관심’을 끊을 수밖에 없는 비정치 태도를 내면화시켰던 것이라 볼 수도 있을

것이다.

사회자본의 형성과 축적을 통한 교회의 복지 기능

주지하다시피 박정희 정권기에 해당하는 1960~1970년대에 한국 교회는 교회 수와 교인 수 모두에

서 괄목할만한 양적 성장을 기록했다. 이러한 한국교회의 성장이 그 시대에 진행된 도시화와 산업

화로부터의 직접적인 수혜라는 것은 누구도 부인할 수 없는 객관적 사실이다. 박정희 정권의 산업

화 프로젝트가 급속하게 진행되는 동안 농어촌 사람들은 도시가 주는 경제적, 교육적, 문화적 기회

에 이끌려 대거 도시로 이주했다. 그래서 이러한 급속한 산업화․도시화를 배경으로 한 박정희 정권

의 발전주의 프로젝트가 심각한 아노미(anomie) 현상을 낳았고, 도시 속에서 소외감과 정체성의

위기를 느낀 사람들은 자연스럽게 종교를 통해 소속감과 정체성을 회복하고자 했다는 해석은 그

자체로는 이론의 여지가 없다(한국기독교역사학회, 2009: 123). 특히 그중에서도 개인의 구원을 강

조하며 근대적 개인주의와 잘 어울렸던 개신교는 비교적 전통사회와 더 연결되어 있는 불교, 유교,

무교보다 도시인들에게 더 좋은 안식처를 제공해줄 수 있었을 것이다. 실제로 도시화가 진행될수

록 개신교인의 수도 함께 증가하는 현상이 나타났다. 즉, 농어촌보다는 도시, 도시 가운데서도 서

울과 같은 대도시일수록 개신교인의 비율이 높아진 것이다. 1985년의 인구 센서스에 따르면 전국

의 개신교 인구는 약 6백 50만 명으로, 전체 인구의 약 16%였다. 그런데 개신교 인구 비율을 시․

읍․면 단위로 세분해서 살펴보면, 각각 18%, 13.6%, 11.6%로 나타났다. 이것은 도시화가 더 진행

된 지역일수록 개신교인 비율이 높다는 사실을 잘 보여주는 통계로서, 도시화가 개신교의 성장에

끼친 영향을 짐작케 해준다(한국기독교역사학회, 2009: 123-4).

한데 이러한 박정희 체제 하에서 한국교회의 성장과정에 대한 종교사회학의 일반적인 해석을

복지체제론의 관점에서 약간 다르게 서술해볼 수도 있을 것이다. 위의 단락에서는 단순히 한국교

회가 개발독재시대 대중들에게 ‘소속감’과 ‘정체성’을 제공했다고 말했는데, 그것은 이미 앞 절에서

살펴본 주관적 차원에서의 ‘심리적 복지감’ 형성과 관련된 것이고, 교회가 공동체 차원에서 수행한

복지기능은 특정한 관계적 속성의 발현이라는 측면에서 별도의 논리로 접근되어야 할 것이다. 그

것은 연결망 복지 또는 사회자본 형성의 측면에서 분석될 수 있으리라 본다. 앞서 이미 복지체제

의 개념을 다룰 때도 지적한 바 있지만, 우리가 살아가는 사회에서는 국가가 제공하는 사회보험,

공적부조, 사회복지서비스 등과 같은 공적인 복지 항목 외에도 민간부문에 속하는 다양한 복지 생

산 주체들에 의해 제공되는 ‘복지 항목들’이 존재한다. 예컨대 가족 및 친지에 의한 가구 내에서의

혹은 가구간의 사적인 소득이전부터, 가족 안에서 주로 여성들에 의해 제공되는 돌봄노동, 종교계

복지기관으로 대표되는 제3섹터, 즉 비영리 부문에서의 복지지출, 고용여부와 고용상의 지위에 따

라 그 수혜가 결정되지만 분명히 급여상의 복지 혜택을 수반하고 있는 기업복지, 생명보험이나 손

해보험처럼 개인들이 예측 불가능한 위험에 대처하기 위해 가입한 사보험(민간보험)을 통해 이전되

는 시장의 복지상품들에 이르기까지, 다양한 복지 자원들이 존재하는 것이다.

그런데 여기에 추가적으로, 이른바 ‘제3섹터’로 분류되는 자조적 공동체와 비공식․공식적 자발

적 결사체들, 교회와 같은 종교조직 내에서 자신들의 고유한 사회적 연결망(social network)을 통

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해 그 구성원들에게 제공하는 소위 ‘연복지’(緣福祉, network-based welfare), 즉 ‘연결망 복지’의

영역도 엄연히 존재한다고 볼 수 있다(홍경준, 2000: 257). 물론 이렇게 사회적 연결망을 통해 생

산되는 복지란 점에서 이때의 복지자원은 사실상 일반적인 사회복지이론에서 말하는 ‘복지재화’나

‘복지서비스’보다는 오히려 다양한 사회학이론 전통에서 발전된 ‘사회자본’ 개념에 더 가깝다고 봐

야할 것이다. 기존의 사회복지학 이론체계에서는 사회복지자원의 개념을 ‘사회적 욕구를 충족시키

고 사회적 위험에 대비하여, 사회문제를 해결하기 위해 필요한 모든 유․무형의 서비스와 물질적 요

소’라고 정의함으로써(김교성 외, 2007: 321), 복지자원의 범위를 서비스와 재화에 한정시키고 있지

만, 좀 더 넓은 시각에서 본다면 사회자본 역시 사회적 욕구를 충족시키고, 사회적 위험에 대비할

수 있는 ‘복지’의 본래적 기능을 동일하게 수행한다고 볼 수 있다.

다시 말해, 기존의 복지재화나 복지서비스와도 다르고, 그러한 복지재화나 복지서비스를 생산

하거나 그것들의 효용성을 높이는데 들어가는 물적 자본과도 분명 다른 형태를 띠고 있지만, 달리

본다면 물적 자본과 유사하게 복지재화나 복지서비스의 창출을 촉진하는 기능을 수행하는 사회적

관계의 구조 및 그 구조의 내재적 속성인 동시에, 또 다른 한편으로 봤을 때 복지재화나 복지서비

스 못지않게 그 자체로, 즉 사회적 관계의 연결망을 통해 얻을 수 있는 실제적이고 잠재적인 자원

으로서 특정한 상황에선 분명히 그 연결망 내의 구성원들에게 ‘복지’의 효과를 제공할 수 있는 것,

바로 그것이 사회자본이다. 만일 그렇다면, 지금은 물론이요 사회적 위험이나 사회문제에 대한 공

적인 사회안전망이 지금보다 훨씬 더 취약했던 박정희 정권기에 다른 여타의 사회적 연결망과 마

찬가지로 도시의 교회들이 그 자체로 대안적인 복지 기능이 활발하게 일어나고 있는 현장이었다는

해석 역시 타당성이 충분할 것이다.

이미 잘 알려진 것처럼 ‘사회자본’(social capital)은 신고전파 경제학에서 생산요소로, 마르크

스주의에서는 생산수단으로 파악되던 전통적 의미의 ‘자본’ 개념을 현대적으로 확대시켜 사회적 연

결망에 배태된 자본(신뢰, 호혜성의 규범, 유대감 등)을 포착하기 위해 고안된 개념이다(최종렬,

2008). 사회복지분야에서도 최근 들어 사회자본의 개념틀을 활용한 연구들이 많이 제출되고 있는

데(정연택, 2003; 홍현미라, 2006; 류석춘‧왕혜숙, 2007; 박세경 외, 2008), 그러한 연구의 흐름에서

본다면, 교회공동체 역시 일종의 연결망 복지의 기능, 더 정확히 말하면 호혜성의 규범이나 신뢰,

의무와 기대, 감정의 공유, 정서적 유대, 사회적(인지적) 연결망과 같은 사회자본을 생산함으로써

구성원들이 처한 사회문제나 사회적 위험을 해결할 수 있도록 하는 ‘복지’의 기능을 분명 담지하고

있는 것이다. 비록 이 글이 다루는 박정희 정권기를 직접적인 배경으로 삼고 있진 않지만, 현대 한

국교회의 직분이 사회자본 형성과 어떻게 관련되어 있는지를 실증적으로 분석한 연구에 따르면,

“교회는 종교적 교리에 기반한 호혜성과 상호 신뢰의 규범을 내면화하고, 그것을 통해 구성원 간

에 이타적인 관계맺음이 이루어지며, 파편화된 개인들이 ‘완성적 동기’에 의해 연결망을 구축할 수

있는 사회적 공간으로서 역할”한다고 볼 수 있다(정재영․장정호, 2008: 296). 특히 사회자본의 이론

적 지평에서 볼 때, 교회는 상호 신뢰의 구축, 규범의 내면화 그리고 연결망 형성을 가능하게 하는

조건으로 인식할 수 있다. 즉, 교회에 참여하는 것은 개인들을 종교 공동체에 통합시키고, 그 규범

을 내면화시키며, 다른 구성원들과 공유하는 다양한 활동에 참여시키게 되는데, 이러한 과정에서

여타의 자발적 결사체와 마찬가지로 사회자본의 형성과 확장의 기능을 수행한다고 볼 수 있는 것

23

이다.

예컨대, 박정희 정권기 순복음교회를 위시하여 한국교회 일반의 고도성장을 견인한 교회 내부

의 대표적인 하부구조라 할 수 있는 구역(속회) 조직이 정서적 연결망으로서 기능한 지점을 살펴보

자. 조용기 자신이 증언하고 있듯이, 순복음교회의 성장사에서 구역 조직은 단순히 ‘성공주의 신

앙’의 담론적 공유 장치로만 기능하지 않았다. 보다 중요한 것은 정서적 연결망으로서 구역 조직

자체가 갖는 복지적 기능인데, 비록 과장된 측면이 없진 않겠지만, 사회적으로 열악한 처지에 있는

사람들의 겪은 고통을 덜어주는 완화적 기능, 스스로 자립할 수 있는 능력을 키워준다든가 빈곤의

악순환을 단절시키는 노력의 치유적 기능, 앞으로 닥칠 사고나 고통들을 미리 준비함으로써 그에

따른 문제를 대비하는 예방적 기능이 바로 이 구역 조직 안에서 일어났다고 한다(김은섭, 2008:

168). 아마도 이는 구역 조직 안에서 구역원들 간에 신앙적 규범이나 도덕적 의무감에 바탕을 둔

재화의 교환이나 선물의 증여, 또는 봉사나 도움 등의 나눔의 활동이 이루어진 것을 말할 것이다.

아울러 정기적인 심방이나 기도회, 구역 예배, 기타 모임 등을 통해 강한 유대를 형성하면서 필요

에 따라 위로나 돌봄의 활동들도 수행되었다고 볼 수 있을 것이다. 물론 교회 내에서 사회자본의

축적을 가능케 함으로써 연결망 복지를 생산한 것은 비단 구역 조직만이 아닐 것이다. 그것과 조

직 편제 방식은 다르지만 남전도회, 여전도회, 청년부, 대학부, 성가대, 찬양단, 교회학교 등과 같

은 다양한 신도회 조직들 역시 연결망 복지의 기능을 활발히 수행하고 있기 때문이다. 중요한 것

은 이러한 교회의 연결망 복지가 아무리 많은 유용성을 지닌다 해도 여전히 그것은 시혜적 차원과

온정주의적 측면이 강하며, 복지에 대한 사적․비공식적 해결방식을 고착화시킨다는 사실이다. 그래

서 오늘날까지도 만연한 한국사회의 연결망 복지가 국가복지 혹은 복지국가의 확대를 가로막는 조

건으로 기능한다는 비판이 계속되고 있는 것이다.

사실 굳이 교회공동체가 아니어도 오늘날 우리 사회의 도처에서 발견되는 다양한 정서적․사회

적 연결망이 수행하는 중요한 기능 중의 하나가 바로 그 구성원들의 복지욕구를 충족시켜주는 것

임은 분명해 보인다. 사회적 위험으로 인해 소득이 상실되거나 중단될 때, 혹은 생애주기에 따른

중요한 의례(관혼상제)에 대한 원조제공은 주로 이러한 연결망이 담당한다는 것이다. 혈연집단의

도움이 일차적으로 제시되며, 학연이나 지연으로 연계된 사람들도 중요한 역할을 수행한다. 모든

정서적․사회적 연결망은 그 구성원들에게 심리적 복지감을 제공하기도 한다. 그래서 한국 사회에서

는 개인이 혼자 힘으로 해결하기 곤란한 문제가 발생했을 때, 우선적으로 찾는 조언자는 사회복지

사나 복지정책 담당자가 아니라 언제나 자신들의 연결망 내에 있는 구체적인 타자들인 것이다. 사

회적 위기에 처함으로써 복지욕구가 발생할 때, 그러한 욕구충족을 복지요구로 전화시켜, 사회운동

과 같은 정치적 행위나 기존의 전문화된 사회복지시스템을 통해 해결하기보다는 자신이 속한 다양

한 연결망들을 통해 가족이나 친족, 동료, 교우 등의 도움을 먼저 얻고자 한다는 것이다. 또한 그

렇기 때문에 사회자본의 구성요소인 호혜성의 규범이나 신뢰, 유대 등은 타자와의 직접적인 접촉

및 교류가 가능한 특정한 사회적 관계나 조직 집단 안에서만 작동하고 있는 것이다. 그리고 바로

그런 점에서, 사회자본은 보편주의적 복지국가 건설의 토대가 되는 ‘연대’(solidarity)의 개념과는

전혀 다른 성격을 지닐 수밖에 없다. 적어도 연대는 타자와 주체 사이에 어떠한 정보의 상호교류

나 직접적인 접촉이 없다 하더라도, 타자의 존재 양상에 대한 주체의 지적 자각만으로도 혹은 내

24

가 직접적으로 알지 못하는 익명의 타자와 주체의 차이를 추상하고 공통성을 지각하는 지적‧정서

적 작용만으로도 충분히 형성될 수 있고 또 그래야만 하는 규범적인 차원의 것인데 반해, 사회자

본은 언제나 구체적 타자들이 연계되어 있는 특정한 사회적 관계 내지는 모종의 멤버십이나 동일

성(identity)을 공유하는 조직 및 집단 안에서만 형성될 수 있을 뿐이다(김종엽, 2008: 266).

이처럼 박정희 정권기 이전이나 그 당시나 또 그 이후나, 그리고 교회 안이나 교회 밖이나 한

국사회의 대중들이 자신들의 복지욕구를 연결망 복지 또는 사회자본을 통해 해결하는 것에 익숙한

문화적 관행은 분명 박정희 정권기에 형성된 발전주의 복지체제가 남긴 거대한 유산이라 할 수 있

다. 발전주의적 복지체제하에서 형성된 복지인식 및 복지태도가 박정희 정권의 파산 이후에도 계

속하여 잔존하면서 사회적으로 복지에 대한 사회적 요구, 즉 복지정치가 발전하지 못하도록 오랫

동안 제약하고 있는 것이다. 즉, 연결망 복지․사회자본을 중심으로 한 복지욕구의 충족이 “상징적

인 원조기능을 수행함으로써 시민들이 복지요구를 국가에 집중시키는 것을 억제함과 동시에, 계급

적 균열구조에 따른 정치적 동원을 방해함으로써 복지정치의 작동을 막는 데 기여한” 것이다(홍경

준, 1999: 319). 결국 공적인 국가복지가 제 기능을 다하지 못하고 있다는 점이 한국사회에서 폐쇄

적인 연결망 복지의 효율성을 크게 만든 이유라고 볼 수 있다. 박정희 정권이 추진한 급속한 근대

화에 대응한 시민사회의 형성은 국가권력의 강제와 경제성장의 강박 속에서 더딜 수밖에 없었으

며, 그 결과 사회자본의 폐쇄적 유대를 뛰어넘어 보편주의적 복지동맹을 구축할 수 있는 시민사회

의 유기적 연대가 마련되기 어려웠다. 신뢰할 만한 공적 제도가 없는 상황에서 한국인에게 너무도

익숙한 연결망 복지가 취약한 국가복지를 기능적으로 대체해왔다. 체계화된 보편적 국가복지의 시

스템에 기초하되, 일상적인 영역에서 제3섹터나 가족‧공동체가 그 결핍을 보완하는 것이 아니라,

오히려 제3섹터나 가족‧공동체가 복지공급을 주도하고, 국가는 그 한계를 보완하는 수준에 그치는

전형적인 보수주의 복지체제가 형성되어 온 것이다.

더욱이 김대중 정부’ 이래로 ‘민간복지제도의 활성화’라는 이름하에 복지다원주의가 추진되면

서 사적인 영역에서의 자가(自家)복지는 더욱 확대되어 왔고, 그 결과 자신들과 가족들의 근로소득

과 민간보험에 의존해 삶의 안정을 도모하는 복지구조가 여전히 지속되고 있으며, 신자유주의 체

제로의 전환 이후 시장이 주는 위험을 시장의 복지로 대처하는 삶의 양식이 강화되면서 오히려 민

주화 이후에도 국민복지의 탈상품화 수준은 큰 발전이 없는 상황이다(남찬섭, 2012). 그리하여 민

주화 이후 지속적으로 복지개혁이 이루어져왔음에도 불구하고, 실제 그 내용에 있어선 잔여주의(최

소한의 국가 개입), 보충성(공적개입의 최소화), 복지개혁의 점진주의, 미약한 조세정책, 민간복지

부문 의존, 노동 배제, 직위차별적 선별주의 등 여전히 박정희 시대 복지정치의 유산으로부터 자유

롭지 못함이 드러난다. 이 글은 바로 그러한 작금의 한국 복지체제가 형성되는 과정에서 한국교회

는 과연 어떤 역할을 해왔는가에 대한 답을 찾고자 박정희 시대에 그 기원을 두고 있는 두 개의

거대한 제도적 유산, 즉 발전주의적 복지체제와 성장주의적 교회체제 상호간의 긴밀한 조응관계를

분석했다. 이제 마지막으로 그 둘의 관계가 빚어낸 현재의 결과가 무엇인지를 간단히 살펴보자.

지난 2010년 1월 기윤실이 발표한 『2009년 한국교회의 사회적 섬김 보고서』에 따르면, 사회

복지법인, 종합사회복지관, 지역아동센터, 자원봉사활동 등 비영리 민간복지부문의 거의 모든 부분

에서 개신교는 다른 종파 및 일반 NGO에 비해 압도적인 운영 및 활동 현황을 기록하고 있다(기독

25

교윤리실천운동, 2010). 그러나 이처럼 개신교 계열의 사회복지기관들이 비영리 민간복지부문 안에

서 가장 큰 비중을 차지하면서 많은 기여를 하고 있다 할지라도, 전체 한국의 복지지출구조에서

그것이 차지하는 비율은 여전히 극히 낮은 수준에 불과하다(김교성 외, 2007; 김진욱, 2009). 물론

그렇다고 해서 한국교회가 제3섹터에서 수행하고 있는 사회복지활동의 가치와 의의를 폄하할 수는

없을 것이다. 그것은 단순히 양적인 복지지출의 규모만으로 평가할 수 없는 중요한 사회적 가치를

지니고 있음이 분명하다. 하지만 정말 중요한 지점은 그와 같은 민간복지부문에서의 기여에도 불

구하고, 복지정치의 담론장에서 한국교회는 어떤 경우에도 보편적 복지국가 건설을 위한 복지동맹

의 연대 세력으로 고려되지 않는다는 사실일 것이다. 오히려 민간복지부문에서의 활약과는 별개로

복지정치의 지형에서 한기총과 대형교회로 대표되는 한국교회의 주류는 보편주의적 복지정치 노선

에 가장 강력한 적대 세력으로 자리매김하고 있는 것이 현실이다. 여러 가지 이유가 있겠지만, 한

국교회가 자신들의 대(對)사회적 복지활동의 의미를 복지정치의 관점에서 성찰하지도 않았을 뿐더

러, 복지동맹의 연대 세력으로 스스로를 내세운 바도 없기 때문일 것이다.

물론 지금까지 논의한 바에 기초해서 본다면, 공적인 국가복지의 강화에 대한 신자 대중들의

욕구를 교회공동체가 하나의 사회적 연결망으로서 기능하는 과정에서 연결망 복지‧사회자본의 제

공을 통해 대리만족시켜주는 심리적 효과를 낳음으로써, 그 의도와 관계없이 공공적 대응을 요구

하는 복지욕구를 가족이나 친족, 혹은 교회공동체를 통해 충족되어야 할 것, 즉 사적인 자원이나

수단을 통해 획득되어야 할 것으로 인식시킴으로써 그 욕구를 공공적 공간에서 추방하는 탈-정치

화의 효과를 수행했기 때문이라 말할 수도 있겠다. 한국교회에서 흔히 들을 수 있는 ‘자조 노력’,

‘자기 책임’, ‘가족애’, ‘가족의 유대’ 등이 바로 그러한 탈-정치화된 연결망 복지의 활성화를 위해

곧잘 동원되는 수사(rhetoric)이다. 현재 한국사회에서 복지정치 논쟁의 기본적인 대립 구도는 생

명의 어떠한 필요를 공공적으로 대응해야 할 욕구로 해석하는 담론과, 그러한 필요를 개인/가족/

기업/결사체 등에 의해서 충족되어야 할 것으로 ‘재-개인화하는’ 담론 사이에서 만들어지고 있다.

물론 한국교회는 후자의 담론을 대변하는 집단이다. 결국 진보적인 복지정치의 발전이라는 견지에

서 본다면, 교회 자체적인 연결망 복지의 효과가 성공적으로 지속될수록 신자 대중들이 보편주의

적 복지국가로의 전환을 요구하는 시민적 주체로 변화되기란 요원할 뿐이다.

이렇듯 복지정치와 복지체제 사이에서, 또는 폐쇄적인 연결망 복지와 활발한 대(對)사회적 복

지활동 사이에서, 한국교회는 진퇴유곡(進退維谷)의 난처한 지경에 놓여 있다. 가장 주도적인 복지

사업의 주체인 동시에 가장 반동적인 복지정치의 행위자라고 하는 자기모순과 더불어, 내부적으로

복지 생산이 활발하면 할수록 한국 복지국가의 전체적인 진보에는 부정적 외부효과를 끼치게 되는

딜레마적 상황에 처해 있는 것이다. 문제는 한국교회가 그러한 자신들의 분열적인 정체성 혹은 모

순적인 위상을 전혀 성찰적으로 인지하지 못하고 있다는 사실이다. 따라서 그러한 성찰이 전제되

지 않은 상황에서, 한국사회를 함께 살아가는 정치적 존재자로서 한국교회가 ‘공공적인 삶’을 사는

모습을 대(對)사회적으로 보여주기를 기대하거나, 좀 더 나아가 보편주의적 복지국가를 향한 시민

사회의 정치적 연대를 이끌어내는 복지동맹의 주체가 되기를 희망하는 것은 현재로선 무리라고 본

다. 오히려 지금은 한국교회 자신이 한국사회의 보수주의 형성 과정에서 복지를 매개로 어떤 역할

을 해왔는지, 그리고 그러한 교회의 역할이 교회의 자기 정체성 규정에 어떤 의미를 지니는지를

26

철저히 되돌아보는 것부터가 우선일 것이다.

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『한국사회복지학회 학술대회 자료집』

______. 2000. 「연복지의 논리, 실태, 그리고 가능성의 탐색」. 『사회복지연구』 제16호

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용」. 『한국사회복지학』 제58권 4호

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Yong-Taek Jung is a research fellow at the Christian Institute for the 3

rd Era, and a PhD candidate at the Department of

Theology of Hanshin University. His research interests include Minjung Theology, New Testament theology, and

Christian Social Ethics. He has published chapters in edited volumes, including “Orthodoxy and Heresy,” & “Salvation,”

in Christian Tales Untold in Church, edited by the Christian Institute for the 3rd

Era, Seoul: Jari (2012, in Korean), “Self-

mentioning Youth, Anti-world Human” in Public Humanities in the Eyes of Surplus, edited by the Center for Peace and

Publicity of Hanshin University, Ifarbooks (2011, in Korean), “Religious Aspects of Mourning in Square”

in Unremembered Death, edited by Tangdae-bipyong, Sanchaekja (2009, in Korean), and “Politics of Candlelight Vigil,

Politics of Square,” in Candlelight and Square, Politics and Religion, edited by the Christian Institute for the 3rd

Era,

Tongyeon (2009, in Korean). Contact email: dawid99@daum.net

28

Freedom in Seoul:

Pedagogies of Ideal Citizenship among North Korean Migrants

Jung, Jin-Heon

MPI MMG

Introduction

This article examines the freedom that North Korean migrants encounter and experience through

their life trajectories en route to and in Seoul, the capital of what is called Chayu Taehan or

free/liberal South Korea in stark contrast to “unfree” North Korea. Particular attention is given to the

causal relationship between their migration and South Korean Christianity in signifying a condition

of being free. By looking at the processes by which North Korean migrants come to encounter

different forms of freedoms, and what “free citizens” should look like, I discuss two main points:

the first deals with the vexing problem and tension between freedom and national security that

grounds Seoul’s politico-economic cultures; the second is the ways in which religious institutions, in

particular Christian churches, play a pivotal role in producing such socio-cultural capitals as

suffering discourse, victimhood morality, and social networks that define urban religiosity and what

freedoms the migrants can or cannot exercise in the context of Seoul’s geopolitical climates.

The concept of chayu (自由), or freedom, in this paper refers to aspirations that, as Arjun

Appaduraj and Peter van der Veer suggest,4 are tightly linked to a dialectic, and not teleological,

cultural project of people and ideas interacting to define or empower the capacities to desire and

achieve them. The concept of “freedom” is a new set of Western ideas and knowledge that were

enthusiastically imported and translated by local intellectuals and national leaders over the course of

modern Korean nation-state building, which took place after the Japanese annexation that was

followed by national division. As Caroline Humphrey (2005) sheds light on Russian forms of

freedom that are all distinctive from conventional individual rights-based freedom,5 I look closely at

North Korean migrants’ life journeys that are complicatedly intertwined with nation-state and

(trans)national religious powers. Interestingly, evangelical Protestantism is a crucial part of how

migrants “navigate” where and what freedom should be and look like. My interest lies in Seoul as a

spatial context, where the concept of freedom or chayu became highly contested and in an arena

where northerners confronted contradictory power struggles.

With no caveats, Seoul is a late-Cold War city where threats of the North Korean regime’s

“turning Seoul into sea of fire” are omnipresent, but at the same time the dwellers are much less

afraid of such potential war than when shopping centers are closed on holidays.6 Upon their arrival

in Seoul, North Korean migrants receive a package of freedoms that includes a Cold War liberalism

that seems to predetermine their political identity in the name of national security, and a neo-liberal

4 E-document on Comparative study of urban aspirations in mega-cities,” http://www.mmg.mpg.de/research/all-

projects/comparative-study-of-urban-aspirations-in-mega-cities/ 5 In anthropology, Malinowski spent a great deal of his later career on elaborating freedom as “a gift of culture” in

Freedom and Civilization (1947), and recently James Laidlaw (2002) and Joel Robbins (2007) have discussed how the

concept has defined and developed by such intellectuals as Kant, Durkheim, Weber, Foucault, and etc., how their ideas

have construed and affected with one another and also anthropology, and yet how anthropology could and should

contribute to developing the studies of freedom and ethics in light of cultural reproduction and changes. 6 Kim, Jong Dae. 2013. “Sŏul bulbadaga ŏryŏun kkdak,” the Hangyoreh, March 15 (in Korean).

29

welfare system that positions them as low-income households in the eyes of the government.

Socially, migrants are exposed to large numbers of religious institutions and consumerist behaviors

that are perceived as unavailable in “communist” North Korea, and competitive job and marriage

markets where they learn how to choose or be chosen. This paper is based on one of my

interlocutors’ life history and my fieldwork at Freedom School, a mega-church run training program

in which North Korean trainees learn to be “free” citizens.

Pastoral Caring and Freedom

This section begins with an anecdote told to me by Mrs. Kim. One day she asked me to go with her

to her village office. She wanted me to persuade the personnel in charge of social welfare to extend

her full national insurance coverage. It was in 2007 when the government modified the North

Korean migrants support policy, and from then on Mrs. Kim had to pay the national insurance fee.

While I was imploring the personnel to reconsider, Mrs. Kim was sitting next me with her head

drooping. The personnel politely refused our request with the following reasons: Mrs. Kim had been

in South Korea for seven years and was earning enough monthly salary by formal (i.e., from

Freedom School, her employer) and informal means (e.g., by delivering testimonials in churches or

lectures at workshops, not recorded for tax purposes) and her two grown sons did not qualify her for

social welfare extension. We left with no success. Mrs. Kim told me in frustration, “Mr. Jung, you

know well about my family situation and how hard I work every day without a break. I came to this

Chayu Taehan (liberal South Korea) to live, but people like us, although we survived hunger in the

North, it is not easy to live here. I don’t know what freedom is.” She agreed with the village

personnel that it was about time for her to live independently like ordinary South Koreans. But it

was clear to me that the expiration of full health coverage once granted by the state gave her a

feeling of deprivation. I realized at the time that for her, anything given by the state was not

considered shameful, as most citizens of Seoul perceive state aid to be. Rather it is a substantial and

symbolic marker signifying that they are “cared” for by the state. Such a feeling of being “cared” for

is different from being passively dependent on a state system. She thought that it was not her, but

her fatherland, that had abandoned her and her family. Her statement “I don’t know what freedom

is” is indeed the question that we must examine “as much as a sensation or feeling as an idea”

(Humphrey 2005:2) with regard to her life trajectories and socio-political encounters.

Ideally it was in North Korea where free housing, free medical care, free education for children,

and food distribution were what she was once given in the name of “Our Dear Father Kim Il Sung.”

Since her “Father” Kim Il-Sung passed away in 1994, such socialist “free” packages had been

waning in the mid-1980s and then all but disappeared, and a great famine called the Arduous March

(1995-1998) resulted in the deaths of at least one million people. The only remaining collective and

national strength to maintain governance of the country was in the notion of liberty which, for North

Korea, equated to a nationalist independent spirit rallied against the imperial United States under the

banner of the Military First Policy. This policy is rooted in Juche Idea, which stands for political

independency, economic self-sustenance, and self-reliance in defense. The “self” in this principle

means the national, and not individual, self.7 However, Mrs. Kim had to survive without relying on

the state’s distribution system but only on her “self” as a mother of children, while her husband kept

going to a workplace that provided him nothing. Her husband became a “daytime light bulb,” a

7 See Heonik Kwon & Byung-Ho Chung’s North Korea: Beyond Charismatic Politics (2012, Plymouth: Rowman &

Littlefield Publishers) and Bruce Cumings’ North Korea: Another Country (2004, The New Press) for extended

discussions about the nature of North Korea and its history.

30

common nickname given to male adults who became useless for North Korean households. In her

household, Mrs. Kim was the only substantial breadwinner who appropriated all her social networks

and resources including her husband’s title (high ranking official at the Office of Railroads), military

officials, local authorities, and etc. to make money, a big business according to her account. In fact,

it was a black market business of stealing salts from a salt farm in a conspiracy with military

officials who were in charge of delivering and distributing the salts to various districts and selling

them on the private black markets that became widespread throughout her province since the mid-

1990s. Her husband and sons were very proud of her ability. Not only her household but also those

who collaborated with her became wealthier thanks to her talent in business management, a survival

practice of individual and local levels of economic self-sustenance. In a sense, she enjoyed a greater

freedom in economic activities when the country turned out to be a “living hell,” but such

underground freedom was fragile as the national “self-reliance” in defense became stronger.

She left everything behind for China where she had relatives in the Korean-Chinese

Autonomous Prefecture. Her great aunt took her to church a few times, but whenever she attended,

she felt that such a place was only for “insane people” whose methods of prayer looked abnormal—

shouting, tearful crying, and speaking in tongues to name a few. But it was when she crossed the

nine-fold fenced border from China to Mongolia at night that she knelt down together with five

other fellows, including her husband, and prayed “God save us” although she didn’t know how to

pray. They had to run across 100 km of desert before the sun rose. The sand storms were horrible,

but she kept praying while walking until suddenly the wind direction reversed and they were all able

to walk better. Her husband still recalled with her that “it was strange.” She told me that this was the

first miracle she experienced in her life.

While some migrants like Mrs. Kim testify to “miraculous” experiences, others point out that it

was neither map nor compass but only their will to survive that led them to succeed crossing

multiple borders. Both cases are often dubbed as perilous journeys for freedom in the mass media,

even though in their account the main “reason” for coming to South Korea was because “we were

not able to live there” [as undocumented border crossers in China] and because of the extreme fear

of potential punishment if they were deported back to North Korea. Push factors like uncertainty

and fear were likely much more influential than pull factors like ambiguous expectations about

“freedom,” a suspicion born out in my extensive interviews with the migrants in both China and

South Korea. Indeed, the term freedom is unclear and is not entirely imagined for the migrants as a

main reason for border crossing. It is through the language of evangelical faith-based activities and

churches that run secret shelters and the underground railroads that the migrants came to learn that

some forms of freedom, in particular religious freedom, were missing in the North.

At this point, one may recall a recent case of nine young North Korean refugees who were

deported to North Korea from Laos by way of China in May 2013. The Laotian government treated

the case as human trafficking of under-age North Koreans by South Korean Christian missionaries.

The North Korean government also accused them of luring and kidnapping its citizens. In contrast,

the South Korean government and North Korean human rights advocates reproached Laos, China,

and North Korea.8 Not surprisingly, in these uncompromising arguments between state powers,

international human rights and Christian organizations, the young refugees’ voices are completely

8 For example, Suzane Scholte, the president of the North Korean Freedom Coalition and the Defense Forum Foundation,

a US-based international human rights organization that are involved in the “rescue” projects, accuses Laos, China, and

North Korea of human rights violation.

31

missing,9 but they appear to be “innocent victims” of either human trafficking or human rights

violations. Though the vocabularies used in this case are all associated with “universalized” human

rights, we find that these young orphans had no room to choose their destinations whatsoever, but

were led by either missionaries or state powers. When they were “homeless” undocumented street

children called kkotjebi in China, they might have been crossing the Sino-North Korean border

frequently, and as a group of three or four wandered the Chinese cities, any market areas, and

wherever else that could be slightly safer, in search of food resources. It was at Christian secret

shelters or orphanages where they were able to stay with no worry about food and hygiene but with

strict rules disallowing them to go out and play freely. Mainly faith-based human rights

organizations like the US-based Defense Forum support the shelters and orphanages, and also

operate the rescue missions. Suzanne Scholte from the Defense Forum reported to news media that

they had arranged for the adoption of three orphans, who had previously stayed with the nine teens,

by families in the United States before this “accident” occurred.

While some extreme liberalists in Western societies argue that people should be able to move

around without legal passports, the aforementioned institutions that exercise “universal” norms

mobilize undocumented North Korean migrants, including the street children, to claim a legal status

other than a North Korean one. To be free for them comes to mean finding another legality through

physical movements that are intrinsically associated with politico-ideological loyalty shifts and often

conversion to Christianity (Jung 2011).

Cold War Politics, Neo-liberal Welfare State, Evangelical Church

The number of religious symbols and institutions exploded in post-division Seoul10; namely, all

religions including so-called world religions and traditional ones became prosperous and enriched,

and yet Protestantism grew fastest under the auspices of American churches and in collaboration

with state authority (Kang I. 2007). Protestant leaders like Rev. Han Kyung-Jik and his church

served to receive foreign aids that were redistributed to war-scarred peoples in Seoul. In the same

vein, Protestantism provided vocabularies by which suffering experiences, in particular under and by

communists, were recognized and sympathized with as a sign of being the chosen rather than the

result of sins. Victimhood religiosity emerged and replaced, as well as purified, former sins of

collaborating with imperial Japan (cf. Lim J. 2012).

On the national level, among the competing forms of freedom, as of today the winner is Cold

9 Lisa Malkki (1995) pioneered criticizing the tendency by which refugees are regarded as nameless, passive, and mere

victims in refugee camps and aid projects. 10

Seoul has witnessed various battles of different forms of freedom and liberty that people wanted to exercise and

implement on the soil. Hegelian dialectic freedom might be better understood with the lens of religion. By the end of

Chosun Dynasty (1392-1897), inside of the capital fortress wall no other than the Royal Ancestors’ Shrine (the Jongmyo),

and rituals in it were strictly forbidden. Greater numbers of Buddhist and shamanistic temples and shrines, and “freedom

to worship” existed outside the walls than inside (Walraven 2000). Self-converted Catholic Christians and other domestic

religious rebellions aimed at the capital were severely and brutally persecuted. When the Hermit Kingdom opened its

ports to foreign forces, establishments of religious or faith-based institutions on the inner city signified the beginning of

modernity. Churches, schools and hospitals by American Protestant missionaries, and Shinto shrines by Japanese

colonizer manifested new social orders to which the local people either resisted or obeyed. For some Korean Christians

the former places meant to be a practiced place, in Michel de Certaeau’s term (1984: 117), where they worshipped God

and prayed for national liberation in their own free will, while the latter meant national humiliation and religious sin.

32

War liberalism whereby the privileged right-wings and authoritarian regimes place “national

security” and “capitalism” over such values as social justice, equality, individual based rights,

antidiscrimination, and so on (Kim D. 2001, Lee S. 2004). The latter values were pursued by

progressive religious leaders, intellectuals, and college students who led social movements for

political democratization and the human rights of urban laborers, but with more emphasis on the

national collective “we” than the individual “I”. Anticommunism was a shared tendency and

sentiment among both forces and in particular it formed a central core, an irreconcilable ill feeling in

nearly almost all Christian denominations. The term liberal democracy became equivalent to

anticommunist nationalism, and evangelical Protestant churches undertook to safeguard it as a

sacred value. This Korean version of McCarthyism is so rigid and powerful that any rational

discussion or self-reflection about it is hardly acceptable (cf. Kant in Laidlaw 2002:314-5). In Seoul,

anti-government protesters, trade union hunger strikers, anti-development renters, anti-US-South

Korea joint military exercise campaign participants, LGBT advocates, and moreover pro-unification

protestors are still all accused of being “Reds,” evil forces threatening national security.

In the historical processes it is crucial to acknowledge that North Korea and its territory became

an ahistorical “evil” Other, dark and frozen, while first generation migrants coming from the

territory shortly after the national division (1945) and during the Korean War (1950-3) became

objectified as exemplary victims as well as division minorities in the South. There are continuities

and differences between these preceding war refugees and newcomers who came to the South since

the mid-1990s. It is equally crucial to consider the significance of the economic crises that hit both

the North and South Koreas since the mid-late 1990s though the degree of effects in each state was

immensely different. In the South, the Asian Debt Crisis, or IMF Crisis in Korean vocabulary, forced

the state government to privatize public enterprises, withdraw regulations for hosting foreign capital,

and thus retreat from the market, namely a neoliberal reform transforming South Korea into a

neoliberal workfare state (Song 2009).11 Similarly yet differently, North Korea enacted the Military

First Policy to secure its national sovereignty and recover its control over the people and the ever-

growing underground market.

Amid these complex and drastic shifts that North Korean migrants passed through in both

South and North Korea and in China, it was in 1997 that the South Korean government issued the

Act for Supporting North Korean Defectors by which North Korean migrants who arrived in the

South became only partly supported by the state, and were instead encouraged to assimilate and fit

into the neoliberal market society as part of envisioning a reunified nation-state (cf. Lee U 2003).

This is not to say that the legacy of Cold War state machinery has weakened. The neoliberal welfare

techniques in which governmental and non-governmental organizations partake were oddly fused

with the preexisting Cold War methods. Evangelical Protestant churches embraced the returning

“brothers and sisters” in the name of helping North Koreans and national evangelization.

11

Jesook Song (2009) convincingly examines how the South Korean neoliberal welfare state emerged without the

experience of a classical liberal state, and concentrated its energies on such neoliberal measures as employability,

rehabilitation capacity, flexibility, self-sufficiency, and self-entrepreneurship. Civil societies that are mainly originated

from and associated with religious organizations among which the Anglican Church was relatively more active,

collaborated in the quasi-governmental homeless relief activities. Similarly, the liberals supported the neoliberal reform

in terms of liberation and democratization as opposed to preceding developmentalist regimes. However, Song has paid

less attention to the complex responses and reactions of the faith based right wings that I want to highlight in this paper in

terms of religious neoliberalism.

33

Interrogation and Initiation for Freedom

Upon their arrival, North Korean migrants are sent to Taesŏngkongsa in Seoul, a government

interrogation facility where they are investigated by security agents about virtually everything

including previous experiences and information about the North and China. The main purpose of the

interrogation is to sort out anyone whose thoughts may be harmful to “liberal democratic basic

orders” (cf. Lee S. 2004).12

Soon after passing through interrogation, the migrants are sent to Hanawon, a government

facility located one hour south of Seoul where North Korean migrants enter a resettlement program

for three months. The area is fenced with barbed wire and secured by armed guards in order to

protect the migrants from any attacks by North Korean secret agents. Such a highly secured and

confined facility is run like a vocational school and a halfway house where the newcomers are

taught substantial knowledge and various skills that may be helpful for them to live independently in

South Korea (Demick 2010).13 In both Taesŏngkongsa and Hanawon, the major religions of

Protestant and Catholic Christianity, Buddhism, and Won Buddhism offer regular services, but the

Protestant programs and extra material supports are incomparable to others.14

When Mrs. Kim was finally released from Hanawon to a “real” society in Chunchŏn, a mid-

size city an hour south of Seoul, she was not afraid of adjusting to capitalist ways of life. This was

mainly because she “used to survive on [her] own in the North where [however] most people [do]

what the state government requests [them] to do.” She appreciated her previous experience of

running a “big business” on her own in the North before fleeing to China. She had been neither

concerned about politico-ideological bifurcation (i.e., the conservatives vs. the progressives) that

tends to predetermine North Korean religious-political inclination to the anticommunist right-wings,

nor interested in attending church, a potent social institution through which the migrants could

integrate into established human relations in South Korea. Instead, she just worked hard at a

shopping center. Whenever she could make it, however, she went to church. It didn’t take long

before she became disappointed with the discriminatory attitudes of South Korean believers and the

pastor’s preaching that criminalized un-tithing; “You know we are living day by day, and oftentimes

we work on Sunday. How dare the pastor ask us to tithe?” she remarked.

After one year in Chunchŏn, she moved her family to Seoul for better opportunities that are

pursued by many North Koreans, and found herself enjoying singing hymns at church. She enrolled

in a training course at the Freedom school and soon after finishing was hired as a full-time secretary.

She was called a big sister or aunt by North Korean trainees of Freedom School, and among those

who knew her, none would disagree that she was a model North Korean migrant: sincere, cheerful,

selfless, and spiritual.

12

Recently some newspapers reported a human rights violation case of a young woman, whose identity is revealed as

Chinese-North Korean. Owing to that her brother was arrested for spying, although he became naturalized as South

Korean citizen years before his sister came to the South, and employed as a government official (Pak H. 2013). This case

represents the purpose of extensive interrogation—sorting out non-North Koreans (e.g., mainly Korean-Chinese) and

North Korean secret agents; possible human rights violations could occur under the shadow of national security. 13

How to drive a car, how to sew, how to cook, how to speak standard South Korean (i.e., Seoulite dialect), how to use

ATMs, how to shop, and so on are introduced along with knowledge about history, legal system, human rights, and etc. to

name a few. My interlocutors receive also medical treatments and psychological therapy, if necessary. 14

Other religious priests and monks who serve migrants in these facilities are often jealous of Protestant churches’

support programs and see them as a model to follow. This is similar to what Alexander Horstmann (2011) witnesses in

refugee camps on the Thai-Burmese border where Protestant missionaries from different denominations, Buddhist as well

as Muslim-based aid organizations are competing and mimicking one another’s mission techniques.

34

At this stage she experienced a transformation by means of physical movement (from the

provincial town to Seoul) and by attending Freedom School. However there were still hardships, as

she painfully recalled that she divorced her husband, who got worse off day by day being unable to

adjust in South Korean society, and even fell in love with another North Korean woman. She felt

guilty seeing her older son in the hospital suffering from a liver disease caused by chronic

malnutrition while in the North. Nonetheless, she became more convinced day by day that God was

leading her in a certain direction, just as the Bible tells the story of Joseph who was once abandoned

but became a leader of Egypt (Genesis 37-47).

Yet she was always very humble regarding her religiosity: “Well, I must say that I don’t know

how much faith I have. I am still walking step by step to know what faith is. I am just like a

kindergartener.” She regarded the Christian faith as both a kind of knowledge that she needed to

learn and accumulate, and a set of manners she needed to follow in faith. Further, the metaphor of

walking step by step signifies that her conversion is a passage and process (Austin-Broos 2003).

Given that her career and religious life were all changed and influenced by the occasion and through

Freedom School, I will examine Freedom School as an emblem of Korean evangelical Protestantism

with regard to its main efficacies in the life of Mrs. Kim.

Christian Pedagogy of Ideal Citizens

When I first visited Freedom School, the school motto hung on a banner on the wall in the

classroom and caught my eye. It read “I am the future of the nation,” which sounds decisive, heroic,

and definitely nationalistic. In this mega-church run training program, “mediated” by South Korean

Christians in the aura of Jesus’ love, fifty or so selected North Korean adult migrants were expected

to be born again as national leaders in a future reunified Korea. The migrants needed to pass exams

to get into this program, which lasts about ten months. They are required to attend main lectures and

activities that take place on weekends and in the name of scholarship; and each of them receives a

monthly subsidy (about 200 USD). Along with substantial knowledge about different jobs, norms

like sincerity, hard work, self-reliance, and independence are stressed.

The lectures are offered by Christian self-made business owners and professional employment

agents, and are typically useful, impressive, and lively. Among the new values listed above, it is the

concept of sincerity (seongsil) that emerges as the most important attitude the migrants should adopt

in order to be successful in South Korea. Seongsil in the FS lecture series means a complex set of

mind and body mannerisms that include being modest, obedient, gentle, enduring, hardworking, and

unselfish. Seongsil becomes more meaningful in a social system. That is, in a company setting, one

is supposed to be obedient to his/her South Korean boss, and work hard with few complaints. In the

case of a self-owned small business, s/he must serve their South Korean clients.

Korean Christians who work for the migrants tend to measure the migrants’ degree of social

adjustment, personality, and more importantly their religiosity, by their bodily appearance and

behaviors. Speaking Seoulite language, whitening one’s skin, and “nice” bodily manners are a few

among many examples that are taught for the sake of making “successful” North Korean subjects in

the job/religious “market.” This is ironic, however, given that the FS staff always stresses the

“interior” mind over the “exterior” body.15

This is not to say that it is a conventional Cartesian

15

This tendency seems to have multiple roots: a militant method in education that exceptionally stresses the

mental/spiritual armament along with physical punishments; a forced ethnic consciousness that intends to homogenize

Korean bodies; and obviously the nature of evangelical Christianity in attaching great importance to the faith.

35

body-mind binary opposition. Instead, it implies dualistic, incoherent, often contradictory, and more

importantly somewhat hypocritical (as some migrants told me in secret) characteristics of Korean

Christians’ language and practice.

As a matter of fact, North Korean migrants including Mrs. Kim appreciated the usefulness of

the quality lectures Freedom School provided, but often became overwhelmed with the sum of

elements they were expected to embody to be “the future of the nation.” Indeed, they came to

acknowledge that what is taught as the normative Seoulite morality and etiquette and as what a “free

citizen” should look like is too “perfect” to exist in reality. To be a “superior” citizen one is armed

with creative, not conventional, Christian wisdom and God’s blessing (cf. Nietzsche), advanced

knowledge about finance and business, and proper ways of speaking and behaving that make you an

“effective” and “deserving” citizen (cf. Song J. 2009). In other words, it is not a model Seoul citizen

that North Korean migrants are mobilized to follow, but rather a model “North Korean subject”

created and projected by the South Korean neoliberal Christian imaginary.16 I was often told that “I

know all the teachings are very useful, but I have too much of a headache (gori apasŏ) to follow

them” (my emphasis). The term “headache” has multiple connotations in North Korean language. It

could be merely a physical pain, but in most cases we should interpret it in the particular contexts

where it refers to complex somatic-psychological conditions that hinder them from thinking,

understanding, following, or exercising. Despite such “headache” situations, Mrs. Kim, my main

interlocutor in this paper, appropriated any spiritual and material resources not only for her own

career but also for her “God’s calling,” namely, serving “our” people. This is why one of her

colleagues from North Korea called her an “iron woman,” which is elaborated in the next section.

Freedom to Be: Religious Networking Beyond Community

Mrs. Kim’s nickname is “iron woman” and may remind one of a Soviet femininity, but she is indeed

a model Protestant lay woman joyfully serving others. One of the former deans of Freedom School

remembered her as one of the most humble, positive, passionate, and innocent North Koreans he had

ever met in South Korea. As such, it is not exaggeration to say that she was an “almost” perfectly

born again example of Freedom School’s mission. She was also proud of herself for working so

relentlessly and creatively. In addition to at least five days of working at Freedom School, she was

taking two missionary training programs a week, and occasionally she was asked to mobilize other

North Korean migrants to participate in various Protestant events related to issues of North Korean

human rights. Those events in the year of 2007 often ended up becoming a political campaign

supporting a right-wing candidate for presidential election. She acknowledged that the South Korean

political Protestants “utilized” North Korean migrants for demonstrating their politico-ideological

orthodoxy—anticommunism.

For her, conversion to Christianity in Freedom School meant not only belonging to the South

Korean Protestant community (cf. Austin-Broos 2003, Becci 2013). This belonging tends to go

much further by empowering her to expand her networks across denominations and North-South

Korean communities. She was convinced that God calls her to serve “our people,” namely North

Korean migrants. As such, her social relationships, what she called indŏk [inbok人福] or blessedness

with friendly people (all she believes God gives to her), with South Korean believers were growing

rather than enclosed in the logic of reciprocity. Her relationship was trans-denominational across

16

See Jang S. (2008, in Korean) for a critical discussion on religion’s place in the neoliberal regime, and Hackworth

(2012) on religious neoliberalism in the United States.

36

evangelical mainstream churches, enabling her to receive extra financial supports with which she

could pay the tuitions of additional missionary training programs. On top of that, she mediated

between other North Korean migrants and her South Korean supporters, or the other way around.

For example, when receiving material donations from some South Korean Protestants she became

acquainted with through missionary training programs, she redistributed them to Freedom School

trainees or her North Korean neighbors. South Korean churches and intellectuals asked her to bring

or introduce other North Korean migrants to the programs, workshops, and events they organized.

As such, what I find significant is that Mrs. Kim is utilizing the same qualities or behaving in the

same way in the capitalist South Korean system as she did in North Korea, where she was a

successful private black market businesswoman. To be successful in North Korea it seems she surely

must have needed to know people and to network. This makes one wonder to what extent she really

had a “transformation” by converting to Christianity, or if she experienced “transference” of her

knowledge and skill sets from one environment to another.

There is a significant cultural element that gives the religious networks “meaning” and that

element is “suffering” discourses. Suffering experiences that are narrativized and valued in the

evangelical churches are crucial to making Korean evangelical “neoliberalism” both cooperative

with and distinguishable from government-based welfare policies for North Korean migrants. I

found that recognition and interpretation of “personal” suffering experiences in the biblical

vocabularies became essential and predominant when North Korean converts delivered their

conversion narratives in churches. Suffering under Kim’s “dictatorship” and en route to South Korea

is so central that “Canaan” Seoul’s freedom is reified as “good” as opposed to the “evil” North

Korea. In addition to this reproduction of anticommunist binaries, articulating suffering is itself so

significant that it makes the testifier an “innocent” victim “deserving” this-worldly and other-

worldly compensations.

I argue that this victim/sufferer consciousness reflects a distinctive form of South Korean urban

religiosity developed in the context of post-Korean War Seoul. The explosive growth of Protestant

Christianity (and other religions) was made possible through a series of massive conversion

campaigns. If we read or listen to any prominent pastors’ sermons and even testimonies by lay men

and women from the beginning of the growth onward, suffering experiences like physical and

psychological illness, familial crises, economic difficulties, political persecution, and etc. are likely

interpreted as being caused by external and structural forces rather than individual wrongdoings and

original sins.17 That the communists were the cause of the Korean War, the national tragedy,

appeared frequently in many sermons in the 1960s and onward as being the evil causing suffering

like family loss, poverty, forced migration, and critical illnesses.18 Such anticommunism functioned

not only to silence and purge pro-Japanese crimes, but also restored and even strengthened the

collaborators’ domination that was backed by the United States in South Korea. In the same vein,

brutal massacres of people by the Christian militia (i.e., Sŏbuk Youth League) before and during the

Korean War have never been reflected on or repented for in Christian communities.

17

I found differences in addressing conversion experiences between American missionaries’ descriptions about the 1903

Wonsan Great Revival and the 1907 Pyongyang Great Revival, and domestic Korean modes since the Korean War (1950-

1953). While the former weighed the repentance of personal wrongdoings and original sin as the beginning of the

conversion process, the latter spend much more on recounting suffering caused by mainly external structural problems. 18

In the same vein, neo-Confucian patriarchy is often accused of causing housewives’ suffering personal identity or

familial crises (Chong 2008). As such, ample number of conversion narratives delivered in churches exhibit a dominant

tendency that repentance of sins or wrongdoings is less articulated than telling her/his suffering experiences as a critical

turning point toward God.

37

Further, what is called hatred spirituality became so predominant that people tended to accuse

external satanic forces, such as the communists, of causing their individual sufferings. Korean

churches have played a bulwark anticommunist role in South Korea. Their pivotal role is not only in

comforting the war-scarred refugees, urban poor, and collaborating (in)directly with the

authoritarian regimes (in the late 1980s), but in sacralizing evangelical suffering discourses to the

point that no rational reflections and discussions about the structural and internal problems have

been permitted. This “reds complex” works very efficiently in reproducing and sustaining the

politico-economic hegemonic power structures and hierarchy that are equally central to the

operation of a neoliberal welfare state in which religious organizations are involved, particularly the

evangelical churches. Overall, I would like to highlight that the “freedom” and “free citizen”

behavior that North Korean migrants learn in Seoul in general, and Freedom School in particular, are

construed and confused with the enduring anticommunist legacy and sets of neoliberal knowledge

and etiquette that tends to both weigh on and empower the migrants in “choosing” their present and

future trajectories.

Conclusion

I have tried to unfold the characteristics of “freedom” as experienced and exercised by North Korean

migrants in Seoul. Mrs. Kim’s discontent with the limited health care system, coupled with

lamentations over “present” hardship; suggest a reconsideration of the concept of “chayu taehan” or

liberal/free South Korea. Based on her life trajectories of being situated in the context of national

division and post-Korean War Seoul, I have demonstrated the shifting state support policy, and

church involvement in the migrants’ reconfiguration of their identities as model “free citizens.” I

pinpointed the enduring Cold War legacy, neoliberal welfare policy, and Christian neoliberalism that

are reified in Freedom School programs including a set of “substantial” knowledge, work ethic

represented by the term sŏngsil or sincerity, and ways of speaking and behaving in order to fit into

the market society with Christian spirituality at its best and most intact.

To better understand the efficacies of Freedom School, I documented Mrs. Kim’s individual

endeavors that extend her capacity through networking. At this point, I must conclude with her

continuing life trajectory, which is related somewhat to the contradiction between her lamentations

and greater opportunities she has evolved through Freedom School and across churches, classes, and

professions. In sum, I share with you my surprise when I first heard that she has since moved to

Canada, and is currently taking a seminary course while serving as a missionary for “our people”

(North Korean “refugees”) in her town. Her refugee claim was accepted a few years ago. As some

may be aware, she was one of those North Korean migrants who took another underground railroad

out of South Korea and pretending as if they came from North Korea, went directly to some Western

countries where they can claim refugee status and become naturalized. I was told that the migrants

expected a better welfare system on which they could rely on in countries like Canada, and for Mrs.

Kim there is an additional personal reason. That is, one of her old friends said that she was not able

to bear some of the new South Korean staff members at Freedom School. In Seoul, to be “free

citizens” they are expected to become independent with minimum governmental subsidy and absorb

the principles of the neoliberal welfare state, whereas in churches, e.g. Freedom School, they are

mobilized to convert to neoliberal Christian ideal citizens. However, it is crucial to acknowledge that

Korean neoliberal Christianity coupled with enduring Cold War binaries (suffering as asset, free

South vs. evil North, etc.) tend to offer them additional opportunities. Mrs. Kim’s case suggests both

the ambiguity and possibility of exercising freedom in Seoul. Her last email I received only a few

weeks ago in response to my question about freedom read “when being free from ideological and

38

mental bondage and servility, and enjoying everyday life according to his/her own will and demands,

I think I acquire freedom.”19 I am still waiting for another response as to whether she feels that she

has acquired that where she is living now, in Canada.

References

Austin-Broos, Diane. 2003. “The Anthropology of Conversion: An Introduction,” in Buckser, Andrew &

Stephen D. Glazier, The Anthropology of Religions Conversion. Lanham, Md., Oxford: Rowman &

Littlefield

Becci, Irene. 2013. “Religious Involvements in a Post-Socialist Urban Space in Berlin,” in Topographies of

Faith: Religion in Urban Spaces, edited by Irene Becci, Marian Burchardt & José Casanova. Leiden,

Boston: Brill.

Chong, Kelly H. 2008. Deliverance and Submission: evangelical women and the negotiation of patriarchy in

South Korea. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center.

Cumings, Bruce. 2004. North Korea: Another Country. The New Press.

de Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1984,

2002.

Demick, Barbara. 2009. Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea. Spiegel & Grau.

Friedman. M. 1979. Free to Choose: A Personal Statement. New York. Avon Publishers of Bard, Camelot

and Discus Books.

Hackworth, Jason. 2012. Faith Based: Religious Neoliberalism and the Politics of Welfare in the United

States. Athens: the University of Georgia Press.

Hobbes, Thomas. 1651. Leviathan. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.

Horstmann, Alexander. 2011. “Ethical Dilemmas and Identifications of Faith-Based Humanitarian

Organizations in the Karen Refugee Crisis,” Journal of Refugee Studies Vol. 24, No. 3, pp. 513-531.

Humphrey, Caroline. 2005. “Alternative Freedoms,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol.

151, No. 1, pp. 1-10.

Jung, Jin-Heon. 2011. "Underground Railroads of Christian Conversion: North Korean Migrants and

Evangelical Missionary Networks in Northeast Asia," Encounters: An International Journal for the

Study of Culture and Society, 4, pp. 163-188.

Kwon, Heonik & Byung-Ho Chung. 2012. North Korea: Beyond Charismatic Politics. Plymouth: Rowman &

Littlefield Publishers.

Laidlaw, James. 2002. “For an Anthropology of Ethics and Freedom,” The Journal of the Royal

Anthropological Institute, Vol. 8, 2 (June., 2002), pp. 311-332.

Lim, Jie-Hyun. 2012. “Victimhood Nationalism in the Post-totalitarian Historiography. -On the Third

Republic of Poland and the Sixth Republic of Korea.” Presented at the 9th European Social Science

History Conference Glasgow, Scotland, UK on April 12.

Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1960 [1947]. Freedom and Civilization. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Malkki, Lisa. 1995. Purity and exile: violence, memory, and national cosmology among Hutu refugees in

Tanzania. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Robbins, Joel. 2007. “Between Reproduction and Freedom: Morality, Value, and Radical Cultural Change,”

19

Email received on June 13, my translation.

39

Ethnos, Vol. 72:3, pp. 293-314.

Song, Jesook. 2009. South Koreans in Debt Crisis: The Creation of a Neoliberal Welfare State. Duke

University Press.

van der Veer, Peter & Arjun Appaduraj. “Comparative study of urban aspirations in mega-cities,” e-document

of research project description, http://www.mmg.mpg.de/research/all-projects/comparative-study-of-

urban-aspirations-in-mega-cities/

Walraven, Boudewijin. 2000. “Religion and the City: Seoul in the Nineteenth Century,” The Review of

Korean Studies 3, pp. 178-206.

강인철 (Kang I.). 2007. 한국의개신교와반공주의: 보수적개신교의정치적행동주의탐구. 서울: 중심.

김동춘 (Kim D.). 2001. “한국의 우익, 한국의 ‘자유주의자’,” 사회평론 2001 겨울호.

김종대 (Kim Jong-Dae). 2013. “서울 불바다 어려운 까닭,” 한겨레 3월 15일.

문지영 (Moon J.). 2006. “한국의 민주화와 자유주의 - 자유주의적 민주화 전망의 의미와 한계:

한국의 민주화와 자유주의,” 사회연구, 11호, pp.75-111.

박현정 (Pak H.). 2013. “인권은 합동신문센터 문턱을 넘지 못했다,” 한겨레 21. [2013.05.13 제

960호].

윤인진 (Yoon I.). 2009. 북한이주민: 생활과 의식, 그리고 청착 지원 정책. 서울: 집문당.

이성택 (Lee S.). 2004. “한국 사회의 자유민주주의 담론과 민주적 공고화 이론,” 사회와 이론, 5호,

pp. 237-281.

이우영 (Lee U.). 2003. “북한이탈주민의 지역사회 정착,” 연구총서 03-02, 서울: 통일연구원.

장석만 (Jang S.). 2008. “신자유주의와 종교의 위치,” [특집논문 1], 종교문화비평 13-2008.

Jin-Heon Jung is a research fellow and coordinator of the Seoul Lab at the Max-Planck-Institute for the Study of

Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Germany, after finishing his PhD in anthropology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-

Champaign. His research interests include religion, nationalism, diaspora, and social activism among Koreans inside and

outside of Koreas. He is currently co-editing a book with Dr. Alexander Horstmann on religion and refugees, and

developing his first book project on the Christian encounters of North Korean migrants and South Korean churches. His

recent publications include “Underground Railroads of Christian Conversion: North Korean Migrants and Evangelical

Missionary Networks in Northeast Asia,” Encounters, Vol. 4, “State and Church in the making of Post-division

Subjectivity: North Korean Migrants in South Korea” in John Lie ed., Multiethnic Korea, Berkeley: UC Berkeley Press,

(forthcoming), and a co-authored book, South Korean Multiculturalism: A Critical Review. Seoul; Hanul Academy

Publication, 2007 (in Korean). Contact email: jung@mmg.mpg.de

40

PANEL 2:

Healing in the City

This panel explores a diversity of emerging religious practices in South Korea’s capital city of Seoul.

By popularizing the meaning of self-improvement, alternative lifestyle and spirituality, some of these

practices have come to offer people of different ages, sexes, and social classes new therapeutic

spaces to reach out and connect. The practice of religion in everyday life is often infused with the

value of education, the accumulation of material goods, the consumption of food, and the discipline

of the body through rigorous training and exercise. This panel invites papers that examine some new,

creative and interesting forms of religious practices in Seoul.

Chair: Kim, Hyun Mee (Yonsei University)

Discussant: Kim, Hyunhee (Seoul National University)

41

City mediators and the Emergence of ‘Healing Industry’

Kim, Hyun-Mee

Yonsei University

Introduction

Healing Society, a book written by Dr. Lee, Seung-heun who founded Dahn Hak Sun Won, became a

bestseller in the U.S. in 2001; and Dahn World’s healing center in Arizona had received attention as a

healing place for Americans who wanted to learn about the Eastern civilization (Kyunghyang

Shinmun, February 5, 2001, p.29). Korean Buddhism provided temple stay for foreigners during the

2002 Korea-Japan World Cup to provide accommodations and the opportunity to experience the

Buddhist culture.20

Since then, temple stay has shown rapid growth, and people could experience

daily monastic activities, spirituality, meditation whether they are believers or not. As religious

experiences emerged as global cultural resources, traveling and sightseeing with the purpose of

experience are rapidly increasing. In the West, meditation and the Eastern Buddhism are incorporated

as important cultural elements of the New Age movement, which reinforces the dichotomy of the

Western material civilization against the Eastern moral civilization. However, the imagination of the

East as a place to heal the Western material civilization failed to notice the reality in which neoliberal

competition and commercialization of life are actually more accelerated in the East. Neoliberal

capitalism forms the therapeutic self that depends on materialism to control the mind beyond the

dichotomy of material and mind. Currently, the word ‘healing’ is used in all areas of life-world in

Seoul, which is enough to say that Seoul has entered the age of healing. The word ‘healing,’ which

has increased conspicuously since 2009, is used indiscriminately in all areas of the current life-world.

From healing food, healing tour, healing yoga, healing aroma, healing humanities, healing play and

healing music to healing politics and communication represented by politicians such as Ahn Cheol-

soo, all areas are repackaged with the brand of ‘healing.’ As stress emerged as the main cause for

threat of national health and decline of corporate productivity, the stress industry that manages stress

is embellished with a more sentimental term of ‘healing’ and forms the core of the healing industry.

This presentation emphasizes that the ‘healing’ boom in Korea well displays the correlation

between the rapid political and economic development and the impoverishment of emotions in the

Korean society. The Korean society is entering a certain state that goes beyond the material needs, a

stage in which a higher-level capitalist consumer culture that controls and manages the mind and

emotions. However, there are not many discussions on how healing, represented by finding the real

ego, is related to the existing religions, and how the emergence of the healing industry expands and

controls religious or public minds. This presentation aims to understand the relation between the

healing boom in Korea and the existing religions. The example of temple stay is used in order to

interpret how various monastic activities including meditation and relaxation, which are part of and

derived from religion, are related to the existing religions.

From Self-help to ‘Healing’ and ‘Menbung’ The Korean society has emerged as the main agent of the global society by becoming an OECD

member state and hosting the World Cup in 2002. As its pride combined with continuous economic

growth, the Korean politics rapidly became secularized. From Roh Moo-Hyun administration’s

‘Participatory Government’ and Lee Myung-bak administration’s motto of ‘National Age of Success’

in 2008 to Park Geun-hye administration’s declaration of ‘Era of Happiness,’ politics are gaining

significance as an investment for the future that will actualize the desire for national wealth and

20

Refer to the thesis by Seok Gyeong-dong (2008) for the history of temple stay.

42

status. Sociologist Kim, Ho-gie (Kyunghyang Shinmun, July 30, 2012) emphasizes that politics have

been a desire that vainly instigated secular desire of people in the Korean society. Rather than

capturing the aspiration for social justice, equality or freedom, politics have created ‘the civil society

by competition, for competition and of competition’ for individuals in the civil society. The structure

of such political subject created “the repression of adjustment to learn everything in order not to fall

behind in competing with others,” and “enhanced and institutionalized anxiety and fear in the civil

society without reason.” The politics of desire lead to the individual mindset of what we define as

‘the society of menbung (mental breakdown).’ Menbung, emerged as a neologism in Korea, became

the top most frequently used word in Facebook in 2012 (Chosun Biz, December 17, 2012).21

Neoliberal self-help discourse that popularity and wealth depend on will and courage and the

conservatism/secularization discourse of Korean politics resulted in the loss of ‘the social’. On the

one hand, it created excessive desire; on the other hand, it created sarcasm and melancholia. The

prevalence of healing and menbung discourse implies that the Korean society is in desperate need of

spiritual comfort. The healing discourse in Korea is expanding with two types of targets. The first is

the discourse of comforting the young generation characterized as the ‘880-thousand-won

generation’ with the generation-oriented feature, viewing their unemployment and under employment

as ‘crisis.’ The twenties consume the healing discourse to obtain constant power not to fall behind the

line of self-help. The second is the target of the middle class that experiences decline in stratum

along with decline in relative status. There had been a rapid economic growth from absolute poverty

since the Korean War and the first massive modern middle class emerged in 1980s, after which there

was an extensive generational class reproduction of the modern middle class. Naturally, the method

of the class reproduction was collective as well as homogeneous, expansive, and competitive. Thus

the fear of breakaway and fall from the group has positioned itself in the base of competition,

thinking, Maybe I’m the only one falling behind. Competition among the middle class, which has

been classified with job or income level, is rapidly expanding to the area of social reproduction. In

other words, for the middle class to maintain their lifestyle and hand down their status as at least the

middle class to their children’s generation, they must participate in the status competition in the area

of social reproduction, such as food, clothing, and housing; childcare; education; health and

appearance; recreation and entertainment; and lifestyle. The problem is that this area is rapidly

becoming marketized. The Korean middle class found themselves in debt as the costs of the social

reproduction sharply increased. The situation led to the point in which even wealthy people in the

middle class could not create their own reproduction, not to mention the instability of life and crisis

of the urban poor. The middle class families were confident that they were relatively highly educated,

and that their ‘premeditated life strategy’ had been established based on reasonable and rational

decisions. However, the strategy no longer worked. This resulted in the acceleration of anxiety and

actualization of crisis (Kim, 2012). The anxiety of the Korean middle class, which has identified

possession of certain objects and certain lifestyles as the state of happiness, is closely related to the

expansion of the healing industry.

As pointed out by Sara Ahmed (2010), the situation in which happiness becomes a kind of

obligation incapacitates people who are dissatisfied with the current life and want to interfere.

Moreover, as positive psychology, pursuit of happiness and self-help are emphasized, melancholy is

paradoxically enhanced. This is because happiness is an unpredictable and temporary concept that

cannot be reached perfectly. Yet, despite the context, people see it as a goal that must be reached, or

connects it with individual morality or personality. Therefore, if the happiness discourse or positive

psychology gains strength, it reinforces the repression that other complicated feelings inside humans

21

Menbung is an abbreviation of mental breakdown in Korean, and it seems to have originated from the game StarCraft.

43

must not be expressed nor explained. People start to think that they are the only ones unsatisfied

while other people’s lives are so content; thus, they think it is impossible to solve the problem by

changing relationships or creating a different world view. They rather reduce the current

dissatisfaction into individualized and personal situation, repressing the possibility of change by

recovering the social and pursuing various lifestyles freely. Consequently, such discourse

substantially creates a state of undemocratic repression. Media in the Korean society is overflowing

with success stories of entrepreneurs and idol stars and the Korean wave has driven the Korean

society into a nationalistic atmosphere of self-celebration, covering up individual unhappiness and

dissatisfaction resulting from stagnant democratization. In this situation, the motivation industry,

positive psychology represented by the ‘Secret’ boom, coaching industry, healing ministry, and

various healing industries expanded and cultivated the repellant ability to shut their ears to bad news

(Barbara Ehrenreich, 2011).

Religion, withdrawn in human pain and inner sides, is also closely related to the structure of

neoliberal healing agents. Carrette and King (2005) recently named the commercialization of the

Western religion represented by spirituality cultivation as ‘capitalist spirituality.’ They explain that

religion has historically experienced the process of privatization of two stages. Since the

Enlightenment, religion has experienced ‘secularization’ along with the emergence of scientific

rationalism, humanism, and modern-liberalism national model. Religious things were relegated to the

area of ‘private level,’ and religion became an individual choice and belief. Upon entering the age of

the individualization of religion, which lost the absolute authority and was separated from politics,

individuals obtained the freedom to explore alternative religions and led the New Age in which

religion and spirituality are integrated. As capitalism became intensified, pursuit of individual and

consumption-oriented spirituality is displayed in the form of ‘prosperity religion.’ Prosperity religion

is a religious form that emerged basically in the age of modernity and industrial capitalism, and it

contributes to actualizing individual secular desires based on religious traditions and the script. This

trend, combined with individualized consumerism in the late 1960s, led to the New Age and self-help

movement through the choice of mystical experiences and religious traditions (19).

The ‘privatization’ of religion in the second stage is the complete commercialization of religion

emerged in the late 21st century. In this stage, the existing religions sell religious buildings, religious

ideas and authenticity to individual or corporate profits, defending the world view of entrepreneurial

capitalism and lifestyle. This kind of reselling indicates the exploitation of the aura of sincerity and

historical dignity of religious traditions. Entrepreneurial intervention, instead of enhancing and

spreading religious traditions, create them as new forms of mysterious and affluent experiences to

sell the cultural resources of religion as commodities. Consequently, privatization of religion in this

sense maintains distance by not interfering with the world view and lifestyle represented by a

specific religion, but rather rebrands religion as spirituality (13-17). It is interpreted that this

phenomenon, referred to the author as capitalist spirituality, does not lead to the expansion of

religion of the established institutions, but rather leads to the weakening of religion by ‘silent

takeover’ of religion. In this context, the phenomenon of the spiritual culture addiction currently in

trend can be summarized as conservative politics, restricted public expression, and colonization of

Eastern religions. While it is popularized in all areas of education, health, counseling, corporate

training, business management and marketing, it does not spread the religious minds. It is criticized

that commercialization of religion dilutes the question of social justice, as a culture framed by the

demand of individualistic and enterprise-centered consumer society. Then how can we explain

individuals’ will to change their life through religious experiences and form a new identity? Gerhard

Schulze (2011) points out that individuals in the late modern society want to create a ‘beautiful, fun,

and subjectively fruitful life’ through experience-oriented life patterns with the concept of

‘experience society.’ In an experience-oriented society, the significance of the market increases

44

because it must provide areas or places in which individuals with consumer identity can experience

everything. Social movement and religious understanding must be organized in the method of

experiential consumption, and people desire to create a fruitful life by participating this way.22

Experience is an act that satisfies individuals’ insatiable desire for consumption, which can be

experienced only through specific consumption. Thus, the invisible and immaterial area of religion

must also become an ‘object’ that can be consumed (Miller , 2003).

Healing and Religion

One of the notable changes in Seoul is the emergence of city temple stays in various places of the

city.23

The number of temple stay participants, which had only been 2,588 in 2002 including

Koreans and foreigners, increased to 187,937 by 2011 (Kyunghyang Shinmun, September 11, 2012).

An article of a Buddhist newspaper diagnosed the temple stay healing boom, interpreting that the

healing boom of Koreans is due to the low happiness index from a sense of defeat in reality that

cannot fulfill economic abundance, which has been their criterion of happiness. More than any other

kinds of healing, Buddhist healing coincides with the recovery of inner balance unlike the curing that

is based on external help (Beopbo Shinmun, December 31, 2012). Buddhist healing “focuses on

recovering the natural and innate healing power inherent in humans, and on fundamentally healing

the roots deep inside their minds beyond the level of consolation or self-comfort” (Beopbo Shinmun,

December 31, 2012). In fact, Korean Buddhism had a great influence on expanding the healing

culture in Korea. ‘Anger’ by Monk Thich Nhat Hanh gained great popularity in 2002, and Monk

Hyemin’s collection of apothegms of life, ‘Things You Can See Only after You Stop,’ was the best-

selling book in 2012. Furthermore, essays related to healing such as Monk Bub-ryun’s ‘It is OK to

Wander’ and Monk Jeong-mok’s ‘Snails and Their Slow Pace’ gained great popularity. Buddhist

monks’ public lectures and broadcasts aimed to heal the minds also greatly increased the public

influence of Buddhism. Popularity of temple stay is also related to the success of propagation in the

middle of the city that has continued since 1980s (Cho, 2006).

As the programs and contents of temple stay diversified, new concepts are emerging such as diet

temple stay and baduk (go) temple stay. Various meditation and experience programs provided by

city temples contribute to recovering the concept of time for city people, freeing them from

impoverished emotions, stress from work and family, and busy life with continuous demands for

self-improvement. City temples in particular satisfy city people’s needs for meditation and relaxation

by providing spatial separation and isolation while being located in the middle of the city.

As Han (2012) pointed out, this phenomenon has significance in that it provides recovery of

retention, waiting and speculative life for ‘subjects with their active lives excessively boosted with

absolute and unidirectional information.’ However, as Žižek(2001) pointed out, the Buddhist

message to concentrate on inner voice maintains mental health by sticking to ‘meditative distance’

from uproarious changes while also presenting the most efficient method to fully participate in the

dynamics of capitalism. This is problematic in that it maintains the ‘emotional state’ to participate

more stably in the game, rather than to pursue a new alternative life by keeping distance from

capitalistic competition. Temple stay and meditation provide experiences to connect to the

‘unknown, true inner ego,’ or true self, but goes along with the trend of refraining from criticizing

religion. Temple stay or meditation helps individuals in the neoliberal speed competition by

providing ‘time to stay here for now, even for a few moments.’ However, while they stay,

22

Uwe Schimank and Ute Volkmann, translated by Kim Gi-beom et al., 『Soziologische Gegenwartsdiagnosen. 1, Eine

Bestandsaufnahme』, Seoul: recited from Nonhyoung, 2011 23

The research team participated in temple stays and meditation programs on February 16, 23, March 22-24, May 12, 24,

25-26 in 2013; and attended the book concert ‘It is OK to Wander’ by Monk Bub-ryun held on May 22.

45

participants must position themselves in a conflict between ‘dry intellect’ and ‘vivid experience.’

Participants are requested to train spiritual sensitivity than intellectual discussion. This spirituality is

not clearly integrated with religious traditions and the current problems of life, but rather

individualized in the form of experience or purchased as consumer goods. By not setting it a goal to

reach the fundamental question requested by religion despite its religious root, the healing industry

depends on the identities of city people who restlessly muddle around among possibilities of life. The

healing and menbung discourse in Korea well displays the situation in which Koreans ‘give up a

fight to avoid death and experience light melancholia as an aftermath’ in the fights of

hierarchy/competition/comparison/excessive labor, or in which they still did not obtain solidity and

assurance while seeking new changes. In this context, the healing discourse and healing industry are

growing rapidly. As Carlo Strenger (2011) pointed out, city people are undergoing the process of

introspective individualization while preferring the solution of avoiding fierce debates in order to

protect their space of freedom which they have valued. In that sense, the Buddhist healing or

medication that supports introspective individualism cannot lead to a social and structural change.

There is a need for contemplation over how to connect the Buddhist experience with ‘freedom’ that

must be recovered rewarded or newly established by individuals and community.

Reference

김현미. 2011 “중산층의 욕망과 커지는 불안들,” 창작과비평 153: 38-54

바바라 에렌라이히, 전미영 옮김, 2011, 긍정의 배신. 부키

석경동. 2008. temple stay의 운영현황과 활성화 방안연구. 동국대학교 대학원 선학과 석사논문.

미간행.

조기룡. 2006 “현대도심포교의 성장과정에 관한 연구: 대형도심사찰의 성장을 중심으로”, 한국선학 14: 241-

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우베 쉬만크, 우테 폴크만. 김기범, 김미경, 김영호 옮김, 2011. 현대사회를 진단한다. 논형

카를로 스트렝거, 최진우 옮김, 2011. 멘탈붕괴. 하늘눈.

한병철, 김태환 옮김. 2013 시간의 향기. 문학과 지성사

Carrette, Jeremy and King, Richard. 2005. Selling spirituality: the silent takeover of religion. London and

New York: Routledge.

Miller, Vincent J. 2003. Consuming religion: Christian faith and practice in a consumer culture. New York

and London: Continuum.

Ahmed, Sara . 2010. Promise of Happiness. Duke University Press.

Žižek, Slavoj. 2001. ”From Western Marxism to Western Buddhism”. Issue 2 Mapping Conversations

Kim, Hyun Mee is Professor of the Department of Cultural Anthropology and Graduate Program in Culture and Gender

Studies, Yonsei University, South Korea. Her research interests include gender and feminist cultural theories; city and

human ecology; globalizaiton and migration. She has written articles on diverse migrants coming to South Korea

including marriage migrants, asylum seekers and economic migrants. She is the author of Cultural Translation in a

Global Era (2005) and has also co-edited Intimate Enemy: How Neoliberalism has become our everyday lives(2010). She

46

is a member of the Forum on Human Rights for Migrant Women in South Korea.

Presence without Being Visible:

The Emergence of Kutdang (the Shamanic Commercial Ritual Halls) and the

Importance of Body and Space in Religious Politics in Korea

Park, Jun-Hwan

Sogang University

This paper is about particular places, called kutdang24, where shamans go and perform their rituals.

Kutdang is popularly known as the commercial ritual halls in contemporary Korean society,

providing places and various kinds of service for shamans to practice their rites – such as renting a

room and ritual paraphernalia, and offering helpers and assistants who prepare food and run errands.

Once visiting the ritual halls, one will often witness that each room is occupied by a different

shamanic group for their own ritual practices. Kutdang is full of a mixture of noises various

shamanic actors make, including shamans, possessed by the spirits, dancing ecstatically, musicians

playing the drums, gongs and flutes, the spirits complaining about the offerings shamans and their

clients have made, people kowtowing to the deities to invoke divine blessings upon themselves, their

families, and their business.

It is observed that kutdang, in general, located in the outside of the residential district,

particularly in the remote places where shamans’ ritual performances are not easily encountered in

the eyes of the public and authorities. The shamanic ritual halls came to appear in contemporary era,

after the 1970s in particular, when the government committed itself in the politics of modernisation

and anti-superstition and, therefore, when the presence of shamans’ bodies and the visible salience of

shamanic rites were prohibited in the public space. Paradoxically, the shamanic ritual halls emerged

out of the midst of the modernisation movements with offering a secure place for the popular

religious practices. As long as shamans and their rituals remained invisible, or stayed out of the sight

of the public, authorities did not show interests on them, and the lively sound of shamanic music

played with overwhelming volume was pardoned. Partly due to their secluded locations, the ritual

halls could make shamans and their rites publically less visible, and their existence was tolerated in

the private sphere of the peripheral margin of the Korean society.

In this given context of the socio-cultural history of Korea, the birth of kutdang can be seen as

an indispensible vehicle to crystallise the interplay between the religious politics of modern statecraft

and the binary scheme (the public/private and the centre/periphery) in the discourse of popular

religion, partly with reference to existing sociological and anthropological theories of religion and

body as well as the Weberian historical methods inquiring the visibility of shamanism. In the

following part, I will begin with episodes I encountered during my field research in order to show

how these issues can be embedded in the discourse of Korean shamanism. It describes the symbolic

division of space as it is manifested in shamanic actors’ narratives and the history of Korea, in the

hope of shedding some light on the place of popular religion in today’s Korean society. Ethnographic

research methods, interviews with retired police men and elderly shamans, and archival research are

employed here to show that the contemporary place of popular religion and the current salience of

24

Korean terms are romanised according to the Revised Romanisation of Korean that is publically recognised as the

official Korean language transliteration system by South Korea’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism in Proclamation No.

2008-8 with a single exception. Instead of gut, kut will be used to refer to shamanic rites since the term has been

popularly and widely used in many existing academic publications.

47

body are historically and culturally constructed.

An Interview with Retired Policemen: the New Village Movement Reflected in Policemen’s

Experiences

In a small square just down the street from a police station in Jongro, an exceedingly crowded open

space located at the entrance of Insa-dong, a shaman was, possessed by the spirits, dancing

ecstatically with her colourful ritual costumes. Together with her colleague shamans, the shaman was

invited to give her ritual performances by a local district cultural agency. The square was situated at

one of the most well known and busiest tourist spots in Seoul. When I managed to squeeze myself

into the crowd of the spectators, I could spot an old gentleman arguing with a young lady whom I

found later that she had been dispatched from the cultural agency for sponsoring today’s ritual

performance. The old gentleman said:

“This is totally absurd. As a public service worker, you cannot show this kind of unwholesome activity to

foreign tourists who may have little knowledge of Korea. There are many good religious traditions, such as

Confucianism and Buddhism, in Korea. I do not understand why you want to show this sort of superstition to

people.”

When the old gentleman’s anger seemed to subside, he returned to his seat and had some rice

wine with a couple of his friends. I sat next to him and had a small chat with them. The gentleman,

who introduced himself as Mr. Chae, was kind enough to tell his story to me:

“I was a policeman once and retired about ten years ago. I was proud of myself to serve my country in the

police force. I met these friends at that time. We were hugely proud of ourselves to help Korea to build a

prosperous modern state. We all were very busy to get rid of harmful things, such as irrational, unscientific, and

feudal superstition (shamanism in particular [with his emphasis]), from the Koran society.”

Mr. Chae, who was a retired policeman, referred to the shamanic rite as superstition. For him,

shamanism was simply a superstition that will bring a bad, and wrong at the same time, impression

on Korea at best and an irrational and unwholesome cultural vestige that had to be removed from the

Korean society at worst. Mr. Chae continued:

“In the past, during the period of the New Village Movement launched by President Park Chung Hee in special,

activities of shamans were totally banned in the public area so no shaman dared perform kut (the shamanic

rites) in the residential area. Thus, people could not engage with wasteful and unscientific activities. I think that

it was a right thing to do. I and my fellow policemen all knew that we could not completely terminate

superstitious praxes at once. The next thing we could do was, I believe, the expulsion of shamans and their rites

from the eyes of the public so nobody could see them.

We knew that shamans had some remote spots to go and perform kut, but it had no interest for us. We let

shamans do their own specialties, such as communicating with the spirits of the dead and dancing with the

ghosts, in somewhere we could not see. As long as they remained invisible and marginal, we did not care. Who

would care what they do in their own peripheral world anyway?”

It is interesting to note the tolerance for shamanism in the society that tried to relegate shamanism to

the category of popular, unofficial, and private religion in sharp comparison to modernisation drives

associated with literature, official, and public. When seen from the perspective of the central

authority, shamanism, partly due to its marginality, came to be less visible so it could be tolerated as

well as ignorable. In this light, the binary opposition between the public and the private and the

centre and the periphery can become a useful vehicle to understand the tolerance for shamanism in

Korean society.

48

Interviews with Elderly Shamans: the New Village Movement Reflected in Shamans’

Experiences

As revealed in the above interview, the shaman’s body and her presence in the public space became

the locus of negative values for the modernisation movements. As a consequence, shamanic rites

were, under the name of enlightenment campaigns – the New Village Movement in particular,

strongly banned at private houses and in the residential district. Looking back over her past

experiences, one of my key informants, Shaman Kim Kumhwa, told me:

“I can remember it well. From the very beginning of the New Village Movement, the government

launched many plans to get rid of so-called superstitious beliefs….

In the past, I was really afraid of the police. I was neither a criminal nor a bad person. As you

probably know, the police were hostile to shamans, and the government blamed us for being wicked

shamans encouraging superstitious practices among innocent people although most people did not think

like that, I suppose….

After the Korean War, I mean like in the 1960s and the 1970s, I had to go through really harsh

times. Looking back, it seems to have been the hardest time in my life. I was often interrupted by the

police while I was performing rituals at houses of which families had invited me. Policemen came even

without ringing the bell, disrupted the ritual, and took me to a local police station. I could not understand

and could not accept it. I told them that I had not done anything wrong. But, I was allowed to be released

only after I swore and wrote that I would not perform rituals again in the communal space in the future.

Then, I could go back to my home. Later, I was even fined.

But, you know what happened then? When I went to kutdang25, rented a room, and performed a

rite, no policemen appeared. It was no problem. Isn’t it strange?”

It is interesting to note the confessional practice at the police station. What was important in Shaman

Kim Kumhwa’s statement was, when seen from the perspective of the government, not about her

profession as a religious specialist who had a quality to communicate with various supernatural

entities and get possessed by them but about the prevention of the visible presence of shamans and

their rituals in the public space. The police were not interested in interfering in the affairs of the

spirits and their mediums but interested in the affairs between shamans and the people – i.e. the

police wanted to make sure shamans would not appear in front of the public with their colourful

ritual costumes and also would not give their ritual performances in front of the public. As long as

the rituals were held in remote places, away from the residential district, shamans and their rituals

were left out of intervention of the government.

Shaman Kim Kumhwa’s story was shared by the majority of experienced shamans I met

during my fieldwork. Gombo-Mansin (the Pockmarked Shaman) Song Gyeong Ok, who was seventy

three, gave me a similar story, as follows:

“When I was a small girl, I lived in Ongjin in Hwanghae province in the North. At that time, people

showed their respect to shamans. It was a good time. But, after the Korean War, when I migrated to the

25

Kutdang is different from shamans’ personal shrines, called sindang. Sindang is a shaman’s own shrine for his or her

own tutelary gods. It is commonly observed that sindang is usually situated in residential or commercial areas where

people could easily access since it is used not only for prayer for shamans’ spirits but also for divination and consultation

sessions for shamans’ clients. People come and ask for either divination sessions or the performance of the rituals in

exchange of a form of monetary reward. Some shamans have sindang in their own houses; others tend to rent either a

studio flat or an office and converted it as sindang. Once it is agreed that shamans perform a ritual for their clients during

a divination and consultation session, the shamans make room reservations at kutdang in advance.

49

South, many things changed. Like the New Village Movement, the government launched a series of

campaigns to get rid of old (what she meant by this was pre-modern) superstitions. Since then, I had to

live through various hardships until beginning of the 1980s.

It was the 1960s or the 1970s….? Sorry, I cannot remember the exact time. Anyway, around that

period… The police obstructed me many times while I was practicing rites. My rituals were disrupted

many times not only by local policemen but also by local bad boys. Those boys, sometimes, threatened

me if I did not give some money, they would interrupt rites and report me to the police.

So, I discussed this matter with my colleague shamans. They suggested that I became a member

of an organisation which could protect our rights and interests. Its name was the Research Institute of

Korean Folk Art (Hanguk-Minsok-Yesul-Yeonguwon)26. I am still a member, by the way… The

organisation sent some people who could look after the place, me, and my spirit children27. When there

was a ritual to perform, I went to kutdang. There was no problem then.”

The prohibition of shamanic rituals in the residential area made them confined only in remote places

far from residential areas. The shaman continued,

“It was very hard to conduct rituals at clients’ houses. Since I started going to kutdang, eveything has

been much better and easier both for me and my clients.

In the past, if a person asked me to perform a ritual, he or she had to do all sorts of preparations

for the rite. It took ages to do that. But, things have got much easier nowadays, you know? Because

many parts of ritual preparation are done by the people working for kutdang. They even send a van to

collect me, my colleagues and paraphernalia, for example. It can be said that we are hassle free from

many things, such as local bad boys and the police. Isn’t it wonderful?”

From her statement, it can be recognised that the shamanic commercial ritual halls were a product of

the New Village Movement. What the above two shamans’ experiences testimony show is how

kutdang (the shamanic commercial ritual halls) came to appear in the 1970s. According to the

shamans, when their rituals were banned in the residential district due to the New Village Movement

launched by the government, they had to go to kutdang. Then, the shaman said, “everything was

fine”. Insofar as the presence of a shaman’s body and her rituals being invisible in the public space,

they were tolerated in the private space. The shamanic commercial ritual halls, partly due to their

remote locations which were far from the residential area, provided the ideal places for shamans. The

religious politics of modern statecraft played an important role to produce the two very distinctive

manifestations of shamanism in the contemporary Korean history – political repression of

shamanism during the era of modernisation, on the one hand, and, on the other, the birth of kutdang

in the popular cultural movements.

Given these ethnographical encounters above, it seems quite clear to me that the birth of the

shamanic commercial ritual halls is directly and indirectly related to the religious politics of the

modern statecraft as well as to its own perspective of modernisation ideology. As Gu (구중회 Gu

Jung Hoe 2000: 40; 2001) rightly observes, the New Village Movement, in particular, triggered

transformations of shamanism: Existing community shrines were broken28, and performance in

26

The institution was formed to promote various popular religious practitioners’ interests, such as shamans, geomancers,

and fortune-tellers (for more, please see their official website: www.poongsoomack.kr). 27

The spirit kinship in Korean shamanism meant the relationship of esoteric knowledge transmission between the

experienced-mother shaman and the young trainee-children shamans who were in the process of learning under the

supervision of the mother shamans. 28

During the New Village Movement, more than sixty percent of shamanic shrines in the communal space were

demolished across the Korean society (최길성 Choe Gil Seong 1974).

50

residential areas was forbidden. However, shamans and their followers were not just passive

spectators. They have rather actively established their own space for ritual performances. Kutdang

played an important role, providing a secure place for the ritual performances, in Korean shamanism.

History in Personal Narratives

One of the most interesting issues here is the incorporation of the personal history of people (or the

individual narrative practice) to the analytical discourses of Korean shamanism; it is closely

associated with the ethnographical research methods in this paper. As Hogarth’s (1999) observation

points out, the historical contexts in shamanism are very important. This is very rightly so.

Nevertheless, this emphasis may remain to be partial unless we can relate the wider historical

contexts to the people’s own subjective-historical trajectory. In other words, when we study history

of shamanism, it should be pursued as a subject that the internal historical narrative of an individual

shamanic actor is interrelated with the wider, external historical events, and vice versa. When the

exteriority of socio-historical contexts is understood together with the interiority of a person’s own

individual subjective-historical trajectory, as revealed in the interviews carried out during the

fieldwork, I believe that historical understanding of shamanism can become more intelligible.

In the above, I have introduced some observations I made during my fieldwork to show how

important historical issues can be embedded in the discourses of Korean shamanism. It is understood

that the personal history of people and the larger socio-cultural history of the society are inter-related

fields of inquiry since the subjective narrative practice of an individual engages with a moving

historical landscape and shifting ideological orientation of the ruling power.

Here, I argue that the subjective narrative of an individual, such as the retired police men who

made a raid on the shamanic rituals and the shamans who were arrested and interrogated in the police

station, can be employed as an important vehicle to investigate the emergence of kutdang and the

symbolic property in the discourses of Korean shamanism. One of the most important points I try to

make is that history in the study of shamanism should be pursued as a subject that is both external

and internal to shamanism’s corpus of religious symbols; the issues around the emergence of kutdang

are, I believe, historically constructed and also constantly culturally reinterpreted in the oral

transmission of knowledge. It has raised a set of issues, including the marginalisation of shamanism,

the gendered poetics of Korean religious landscape, the dualistic structure based on concentric

dualism (I will come back to this shortly), and its ambiguous dual dynamics between centre and

periphery.

Dualistic Structure Embedded in the Discourse of Korean Shamanism

Studies show that the state’s militancy against, so-called, backward cultural and religious traditions

was found in many countries, including many newly emerging post-colonial nations in Asia (e.g.

Anagnost 1987; Keyes et al. 1994) and Western Europe, as well. For instance, during the

enlightenment period in the history of Western Europe, popular religion, including peasant beliefs in

earth spirits and spirits of the dead, which was accused of being ridiculous modes of thought

representing the idiocy of rural life in sharp contrast to the official religion, Christianity, by

authorities, went through a process of suppression at worst, or romanticisation at best (Schneider

1991).

51

Korea was no exception. After the Japanese colonial era, the Korean government launched a

series of modernisation measures. The Park Chung Hee’s regime was more aggressive than its

predecessors. While the enlightenment campaigns were celebrated by authorities, on the one hand,

and, on the other, many traditional popular religious traditions were defined as the symbol of ‘feudal

superstition and/or backwardness’ (윤이흠 Yun I Heum 1987: 121). In comparison to the

government-initiated modernisation drive, popular religious traditions, thus, had to suffer from

public disregard on the margin of the contemporary Korean society. Shamanism, in particular, came

to be understood as the obstacle for the modernisation of Korea since shamanism, which was seen as

a mere superstition by the central authority, often came to be the locus of negative value for the

enlightenment movements. Here, its ideas of rationality against superstitious shamanism were

closely connected to the politics of social morality in the enlightenment movements, such as the New

Village Movement (e.g. 새마을운동중앙협의회 Saemaul Undong Junganghyeobeuihoe/ the

National Council of the New Village Movement 1990: passim; 정구영 Jeong Gu Yeong 2003; 최

길성 Choe Gil Seong 1974; Hogarth 1998; 1999; Kendall 1994).

Given all this, the notion of concentric dualism I employ to discuss shamanism in this research

should prove itself to be a useful frame for the understanding of the religious politics in the Korean

society since the dualistic divisions29 – such as the central authority and the marginal popular

religion, the hegemonic power and the subversive popular religion, the institutionalised religion (e.g.

Christianity and Buddhism) and the non-institutionalised religion, and the male clergymen and the

female shamans – appears to be very pervasive in the discourses of Korean shamanism (Kendall

2008); the relation between those divisions are asymmetrical. In this light, the structure of concentric

dualism in shamanism should be employed as a useful vehicle to understand the dynamics in ‘the

gendered poetics of space’30 that contrasts the central hegemonic power to the marginal popular

religious beliefs in the Korean society.

Concentric Dualism: Public vs. Private/ Centre vs. Periphery

Against this background, I suggest that it should be beneficial to employ the notion of concentric

dualism, incorporating the asymmetrical relationship between the centre, associated with the official

authority, and the periphery, related with the popular culture, to understand the binary scheme in the

discourses of shamanism since it can tell us about how the pre-modern as well as modern states of

Korean constructed the notion of modernisation in the central, public, and official realm, and how

popular religious traditions, shamanism in particular, were marginalised into the peripheral, private,

and domestic realm.

One of the most distinctive features of shamanism found in Korea’s religious history from the

legendary Dangun’s Gojoseon (the Ancient Joseon) to the historical Joseon dynasty is the transition

of shamanism from a central political cult to a peripheral popular religious practice (조흥윤 Cho

Hung-Youn 1990; 1998; Chang 1982; Kim 1993): Since the emergence of the centralised states,

shamanism had been gradually marginalised, and its central role had been replaced with other

religious traditions – such as Buddhism in the periods of the Three Kingdoms and the Goryeo

29

As suggested by Hamayon (1994), the dualistic structure in the discourse of shamanism is often a focus of social and

cultural analysis. 30

This term is used by Thien Do (2007) when he talks about features in Vietnamese popular religion. I will come back

to this in the following part with more details.

52

dynasty and Neo-Confucianism in the Joseon dynasty. It can be, when we accept the legendary

history of Korea in ancient times, also seen that shamans who once had enjoyed political, jural, and

religious powers at the heart of the society were deprived of their prestigious positions and, in turn,

put into the margin of the society.

Hamayon (1994) argues that various historical forces could be said to have played a role in the

process of the marginalisation of popular religion31. Based on the comparative case studies of

shamanism in the Buryat in Siberia, he (ibid.: 88) notes that ‘so far as state formation implies

centralization, it cannot emerge from a shamanistic society unless shamanism has been led to

fragment into a series of separate practices carried out by marginalized specialists.’ When we look

closely at Hamayon’s study (ibid.), it is quite apparent that his understanding of shamanism is based

on the dualistic divisions, such as the centralised state and the marginalised shamanism, the

institutionalised religion (e.g. Buddhism and Christianity) and the uninstitutionalised religion (e.g.

shamanism), and the male clergymen and the female shamans, are easily found32. Shamanism and its

ritual specialists are, in this light, seen to be socially marginal, and they were even considered to be

opposed to the central authorities. What is immediately recognisable in this dualistic view, Hamayon

draws upon as an idea of concentric dualism incorporating centre and periphery dynamics33.

Levi-Strauss suggests an evocative idea of ‘concentric dualism’ in his celebrated Structural

Anthropology (1978 [1973]) to interpret the Bororo Indians’ cosmology and social structure – the

dual organisation consisting of the sacred masculine village centre and the feminine, domestic and

profane domain of the village periphery. Crocker (1985), following Levi-Strauss, explains the spirit

world of the Bororo with two types of entities: the aroe spirits, which are associated with immortal

and immutable totems in the male dominated community centre, and the bope spirits, which are

connected with the principle of mortal organic process and domestic issues in the female led village

periphery. Two kinds of shamans, in turn, exist. They are the aroe etawa-are functioning with men

and the bari who always work in the feminine space of the village periphery. Even in the same

religious tradition, Lewis (1989 [1971]) argues that a distinction is made between the central

possession cults, dominated by male shamans, and the peripheral possession cults, generally

practiced by the oppressed, usually women (due to their peripherality34, men of low social position

are also involved). Lambek’s work on the spirit possession in Madagascar (Lambek 1981) and

Boddy’s work on the Zār cult in northern Sudan (Boddy 1989) also make a similar point about the

central Islamic beliefs in contrast to the peripheral spirit possession, or women’s cult practices. This

kind of gendered vision of the world is, in Janet Hoskins’ Kodi notions of double descent, referred to

31

It is found that this degeneration of popular religion is recognised not only in Korea but also in other societies as well

(cf. Thomas & Humphrey 1994; Wolf 1991) - e.g. Peasant beliefs in earth spirits and spirits of the dead, which were

accused of being ridiculous modes of thought representing the idiocy of rural life in sharp contrast to the official religion,

Christianity, by literate elites, went through the process of suppression (or romanticisation at best) in the history of

Western Europe (Schneider 1991). 32

One of the most interesting as well as important features of popular religion, including shamanism, is that in

comparison to the institutionalised religious traditions – such as Christianity and Buddhism – that have the scriptures, the

organised ecclesiastical communities, and the many monasteries, popular religion is largely uninstitutionalised (cf.

Feuchtwang 2001; Maldonado 1986; Weller1998: 92). It seems that uninstitutionalised shamanism was, consequently,

recognised less visible and, more importantly, less threatening so it was able to continue its persistence in the private

domain in Korean society (cf. Clark 1961: 179; Haboush & Deuchler 1999; Walraven 1999). 33

Although Hamayon (1994) does not use the term, concentric dualism, his understanding of shamanism as a

marginalised religious tradition in comparison to the central authority seems to stem from the dichotomised world view

between centre and periphery. 34

The term is used by Lewis (1989 (1971): 27).

53

as ‘double-gendered’ image of power35. Exploring what he calls ‘the gendered poetics of space’,

Thien Do (2007) also contrasts exterior popular beliefs to interior ancestor worship in Vietnam. One

of the most interesting (as well as important) things in these literatures is that the idea of spatial

polarity between the centre and the periphery is discussed as an organising principle of hierarchy and

gender asymmetry.

However, the two seemingly opposing dynamics do not so much conflict as contradict one

another. They are not mutually exclusive but rather complementary and interpenetrative with each

other since, in the world of ambivalence, the constitutive condition of one has to rely on the

existence of the other. Kwon (2008) observes that the very meaning of the relational structural order

between the sacred central ancestral cult and the dangerous marginal ghost cult in Vietnam is

mutually not exclusive but constitutive so the exclusion of the peripheral ghost from the symbolic

construction of sacred social (as well as moral) order may result in a problematic definition of the

central ancestral cult itself. After all, one of the most important governing principles of concentric

dualism should be found in the dialectical relationship between centre and periphery.

The Body

In addition, another interesting issue we could observe in the narrative practices of the policemen and

the shamans is the presence of shaman’s body in the public space in the religious politics of statecraft.

The current salient presence of the body in the public discourse is closely associated with Korean

history. It is socio-culturally produced and is constantly reinterpreted in the pre-modern as well as

modern states of Korea36: In the Confucian state of Joseon, shamans were expelled from the capital,

and they were not allowed to enter within the city wall without government permission (조흥윤 Cho

Hung-Youn 1985; 1990; 1997; 1998; Hogarth 1998: 243-244; 1999: 310-326). What is important

here is that shamans were marginalised to the periphery of the Joseon society not only symbolically

but also physically. During the Japanese colonial era, in order to discourage the rise of national

sentiments, anti-shamanic policies adopted as a way to prevent shamanism being mobilised as the

counterforce against colonial power (조흥윤 Cho Hung-Youn 1998; Nahm 1988). In this milieu, the

presence of shamans and their rituals in the public space were banned, and the shamans were able to

perform the rites only in the domestic realm quietly (Hogarth 1999: 341). Later, during the First

Republic, the shamanic rites were also banned in residential areas, and the Capital Policy Agency

designated fifteen places in which shamans were allowed to perform their ritual in Seoul (강돈구

Kang Donku 1993; 2007). It was because that the presence of shamans, who claimed to be able to

communicate with the dead, in the public space became the locus of negative value for the

modernisation movements. Shamanic ritual praxis was continuously prohibited in residential districts

in the following period, particularly in the 1960s and the 1970s. The central authority made

35

In particular, Janet Hoskins (1990; 1996) should be credited with bringing these matters of sexual politics, the

hierarchy of value, gendered space and power, and, above all, dualistic symbolism into the domain of anthropological

inquiry. In her recent studies, Hoskins argues that the system of headhunting, what she calls ‘the ritualized taking of life’,

and its following display the heads in the public space are institutionally linked to the construction of male masculinity,

which ‘erects a hierarchy of value’, in many Southeast Asian hunting and gathering societies. It, in turn, results into the

asymmetrical valuations between men and women as well as between the male dominated public and the female oriented

domestic spaces. 36

Kendall (1994: 167-168) sees that there is, in response to ritual activities of popular religion, a certain continuity

between the pre-modern Confucian elites and the modern progressives since both of them are interested in encouraging

good rich customs in contrast to the ritual activities of shamans who are predominantly women.

54

determined efforts to extirpate superstitious practices from popular culture and launched a series of

enlightenment campaigns during the Park Chung Hee’s regime. As the interviews with the elderly

shamans reveals above, the debasement of shamanism from the public space came to be much more

severe at this time. It, as a result, paved a way towards the commercialisation of shamanism: Secure

places were demanded for the performance of kut, and they were provided to shamans in exchange of

a form of monetary reward.

It is often found that the study of the body plays an important role in social and cultural

analysis (cf. Corrigan & Sayer 1985; Csordas 1994). Among many others, I would like to focus on

two analytical issues on the body: One is that the current salience of the body is constituted by

numerical cultural and historical forces (Martin 1992: 121); the other is that the presence of the

body in the public space often becomes an important as well as visible symbol of moral evaluation

and power contest in the religious politics of statecraft37. The presence of shamans’ bodies and the

visible salience of shamanic rituals were prohibited in the public space by the central authority in the

pre-modern as well as the modern states of Korea. As Walraven (1999) argues, the visibility of

popular religion plays an important role here. Authorities regarded the presence of the shamans as

both expressions and instrumental affirmation of moral and ritual hierarchy. This paper aims to bring

the importance of the body into the analytical discourses on Korean shamanism. I suggest that the

establishment of the shamanic commercial ritual halls is closely related to the anthropological

inquiries of space and human body as the locus of the negotiation of power, morality, political

violence, cultural and religious values, and personal experiences.

References

강돈구 Kang Donku. 1993. Mingunjeongui Jonggyojeongchaek 미군정의 종교정책 (The Religious Policy

of the United States Army Military Government in Korea). Jonggyohak-Yeonku 종교학연구

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—. 1997. Hanguk Mueui Segye 한국巫의 세계 (The World of Korean Shamanism). Seoul: Minjoksa 민족사.

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Becomes a Ritual Prop. American Ethnologist Vol.35, No.1, 154-170.

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56

of East and Southeast Asia. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

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Books.

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Routledge.

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Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Park, Jun Hwan was educated at Dongguk University (B.A. in Zen Studies), King’s College, London (M.A. in

Anthropology and Sociology of Religion), the London School of Economics and Political Science (M.Sc. in

Anthropology), and the University of Edinburgh (Ph.D. in Social Anthropology). He currently belongs to the Institute for

the Study of Religion (ISR) at Sogang University as a researcher. His research interests are Anthropology of religion,

popular religion, Korean shamanism, rituals and myths, religious symbolism, cultural history of modernity and political

economy, money, morality of exchange, economic anthropology, and philosophical inquiries of desire and ontology.

Contact email: junhwan.park@gmail.com

57

“Paramedical” Healing in Hospitals:

The Expansion of Spiritual Care in Seoul Park, Irene Yung

Yonsei University

An Overview of the Catholic Idea of Healing

The notions of ‘infirmity’ and ‘healing’ are polysemous, that is, they possess not one but several

meanings, conceptually related among them. That meaning which the majority of speakers would

first think of if presented with the word without a given context is the direct or dominant one.

Variations in meaning are then derived in different ways from it38. In the present case, the dominant

meaning seems to be physical infirmity –disease- and the corresponding healing. Since the discourse

about infirmity and healing has been omnipresent in historical Catholicism, we could briefly examine

whether there is a specifically Catholic semantic field related to healing and if so, what is the primary

meaning of the term therein.

The Old Testament conception is that, before being biological facts, diseases and their healing

are religious events related to sin and purification. Purification from sin being a divine prerogative, it

naturally follows that healing proceeds always from God39. Jesus somehow severed the causal

connection between particular sins and diseases40 but he did not cancel the unitary view, where

spiritual and physical infirmity and health are closely related41. The New Testament books depict him

performing numerous healings on the sick while simultaneously preaching a change of life and

forgiving their sins. He is also shown conferring upon his disciples this same mission, sending them

to alleviate and overcome both moral and physical evil42. Divine healing thus seems to integrate all

meanings of healing, reaching humans as a whole, body and soul.

The Catholic Church assumed this all-embracing notion as her fundamental mission, following the

above mentioned mandate of Jesus. But based on the fact that Jesus did not heal all infirmities, she

interprets his healing the body as a sign of a more radical and central healing: the defeat of sin and

death. This action, which is exclusive to God, is the central content of Christianity. We could

therefore say that, within the Catholic tradition, moral evil and the cancellation of sin are the new

primary meanings of infirmity and healing43.

The category forged by the Church to designate the coming from above of divine power is known

as ‘sacrament’. The doctrine underlying this notion is that God’s sacred power is always received,

never just taken, and that it is given by the mediation of the ministry of the Church, which also has a

38

Cf. L. Zgusta, Manual of Lexicography, Mouton, The Hague/Paris 1971, 61-64. 39

The references are very abundant. Cf., for ex., the Book of Deuteronomy, passim; the Book of Numbers 11-12; 2

Kings 1; 1 Samuel 5; etc. 40

Cf. John 9:1-5. 41

Cf. Matthew 9:1-8; Luke 13:10-17. 42

Cf. Matthew 10; Mark 16, 15-18. 43

Cf. Catholic Church, nn. 1500-1509.

58

sacramental origin. “The ministry in which Christ's emissaries do and give by God's grace what they

cannot do and give by their own powers, is called a ’sacrament’ by the Church's tradition”44.

The point of reference of healing is then, in Catholicism, sacramental healing. It is an essentially

ritual and ministry-mediated event, in which the efficacy is dependent on the healing which had been

performed once and for all by Jesus through his triumph over sin by his death and resurrection from

the dead. Just as the miraculous cures he performed are interpreted as tangible signs of the intangible

healing offered to the soul, the sacramental ritual would be a tangible sign that brings about, here and

now, Jesus’ healing efficacy. This is how the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the official

exposition of the Church’s teachings, puts it:

“Often Jesus asks the sick to believe (cf. Mk 5:34, 36; 9:23). He makes use of signs to heal:

spittle and the laying on of hands (cf. Mk 7:32-36; 8:22-25), mud and washing (cf. Jn 9:6-7).

The sick try to touch him, ‘for power came forth from him and healed them all’ (Lk 6:19; Mk

1:41; 3:10; 6:56) and so in the sacraments Christ continues to ‘touch’ us in order to heal us”45.

The foundational basis just presented explains the approach of the Catholic Church to its healing

mission as simultaneously holistic and diversified, that is, as one that tries to embrace all the

meanings of healing – from physical to spiritual – though clearly emphasizing the priority of the

spiritual dimension.

Spiritual Healing in non-Catholic Hospitals: the Facts

Korean Catholicism has been no exception to the long-standing healing tradition of the Church.

Since the moment it started to enjoy political freedom in 1885, it has dedicated itself greatly to health

care and to other social welfare work46. Today there are 9 medical centers of Catholic affiliation only

within Seoul. 4 of them are general hospitals run by the Diocese47, among which one is one of the so-

called ‘big 5’ hospitals of the metropolis48. In association with 5 other Catholic general hospitals

outside Seoul, they form an umbrella organization called ‘Catholic Medical Centers’ or CMC.

Consistent with their inspiration, CMC hospitals claim a holistic approach to care, where together

with the physical cure, psychological and spiritual needs of the sick are also considered and provided

for. This, together with the spiritual attention of the hospital staff, is the function of their clinical

chaplaincies.

44

Catholic Church, n. 875. 45

Catholic Church, n. 1504. 46

The World Day of the Sick was instituted in the Universal Catholic Church in May 1992. In 2007, the venue chosen

for the yearly world celebration was nowhere other than Seoul, confirming through ample media coverage the core

importance of the attention to the sick in the mission of the Korean Church. For a list of Catholic health institutions

countrywide, cf. http://chak.or.kr/info/infos1_01.asp (accessed June 6 2013). 47

Dioceses are geographical units in which the universal Catholic Church is immediately structured for pastoral

purposes. Each diocese is traditionally divided in parishes, which are also based on geographical criteria. The diocese

of Seoul coincides territorially with the administrative district of Seoul. 48

The ‘big 5’ are Asan hospital, Seoul National University Hospital, Gangnam St. Mary’s Hospital, Samsung Hospital

and Severance hospital. Two of them are confessional: St. Mary is Catholic and Severance is Protestant.

59

What is really worth noting is that, in a city like Seoul, where Christianity belongs to recent

history and only 13% of the population is Catholic49, not only CMC hospitals have chaplaincies but

many other general hospitals do, as well. Most hospitals actually host three different chaplaincies,

one for each of the dominant religious groups in Korea: Buddhists, non-Catholic Christians and

Catholics.

When and how did this happen? Who were the agents of this decision and how was the decision

shaped? I will try to answer these questions now, availing of a retrospective view. Since each

religious group walked a relatively independent path towards the creation of their chaplaincies, we

will focus mainly on the Catholic case.

According to Fr. P. Hong, Head of the diocesan ‘Office for the Pastoral Care of non-Catholic

Hospitals’ (from now on referred to as OPH), the initial spots of pastoral presence in these

institutions were associations of Catholic staff formed spontaneously in the 1970’s. The members of

these associations would invite priests to come to celebrate Mass and other sacraments, either for

themselves or for the sick, or require the services of nuns and priests for other ways of nurturing their

own Catholic faith. In time, some of these priests were officially named as chaplains of the

associations they were assisting, their relation with hospitals becoming thus more continuous.

Through this growing acquaintance, the inside world of non-Catholic hospitals (from this point

onwards, I will refer to them as non-CMC hospitals) started to gain visibility before Church

representatives. The attention turned from the Catholic staff to the Catholic sick. The need to provide

those faithful with pastoral care emerged as an unaddressed demand. Starting 1977, a handful of

priests who had taken interest in this work decided to prepare professionally for the task under the

supervision of qualified foreign missionaries that were then working in Korea. The program that

started then, called ‘Clinical Pastoral Education’ (CPE), continued to be active during the 1980’s and

1990’s50.

However, it was only in 2001 that an office for this pastoral task – the above mentioned OPH –

was created within the diocesan administration of Seoul, branching out from an existing unit in

charge of the pastoral care of office workers. Just as this unit had tried to attend to the Catholic

faithful who work in companies, a systematic effort to also be stably present in large sized general

hospitals (400 or more beds) of the city began. The negotiations for this were conducted separately

for each hospital by the OPH. Gradually, hospitals agreed to host Catholic and Buddhist chaplaincies

inside their buildings, as these two frequently joined the already existing non-Catholic Christian

chaplaincies51.

49

Cf. The Catholic Pastoral Institute of Korea, 1. 50

Cf. also 이은선, “임상사목교육”, <바오로의 뜨락> 114 (2010 여름), 샬트르 성 바오로 수녀회 출판부, 96

(Eunseon Lee, Clinical Pastoral Education, in “The track of Paul” 114 (Summer 2010), Religious of Saint Paul of

Chartres Publishing Office): cited in Office for the Pastoral Care of non-Catholic Hospitals of the Diocese of Seoul, 30.

51 It is interesting to notice the differences between these chaplaincies’ character and orientation. Some of the non-

Catholic Christian ones seem to include in their mission preaching and conversion of the non-faithful, even if this cannot

be generalized or might be changing. The uncertainty is due to the fact that most priests and nuns that I interviewed

avoided making clear remarks about this topic when concretely asked. Catholics have aimed almost exclusively at the

spiritual care of their faithful from the very start. Finally, Buddhist “chaplaincies” were not established out of their own

initiative but as a side effect of the creation of Catholic chaplaincies. Hospitals considered that they could not host only

two Christian religions and leave out Buddhism, which represents the biggest segment of the religious population of

Korea. According to Frs. P. Hong and J. Kim, this is how many Buddhist offices entered the hospitals together with

Catholic chaplaincies. The perception I could have is that they are fundamentally passive: Buddhist chaplaincies are

60

The process is still ongoing, even if it was partially completed some three years ago. In 2009,

there were 27 chaplaincies in a total of 36 hospitals targeted by the OPH52. In these chaplaincies, a

total number of 20 priests and 32 nuns work almost exclusively in the direct attention of the sick,

assisted by 1387 lay faithful who have received specific formation in this area, and many more about

whom there are no centralized records53. Bigger hospitals are attended to by a resident priest while

several smaller hospitals are taken care of together by a single priest who visits them by turns. One

and sometimes two nuns reside in every hospital, even in those where priests are not residing

because a Catholic chaplaincy office is not allowed54. These nuns, who belong to different religious

orders, are willing to undertake this pastoral work because it corresponds to the peculiar ‘charism’ or

foundational character of their communities.

Spiritual Suffering as Paramedical Dysfunction

The main scope of Catholic clinical chaplaincies is unquestionably the spiritual care of the sick and

of their families. For those in non-CMC hospitals, this is actually the bulk of their work, even if their

mission extends to the religious attention of hospital staff members who are Catholics55. Now what is

the exact nature of spiritual care? And prior to this, how can we understand ‘spiritual suffering or

infirmity’ that calls for that care? In this section, I will try to elaborate on the experience of spiritual

suffering in a clinical context. I will do this by offering a descriptive notion, drawing from the

emotional and intimate side of hospital narratives as represented by clinical chaplains56.

Some clarifications might help justify this choice. “Disease” and “illness” have been commonly

used notions in medical anthropology to distinguish between the biological dysfunction or

pathological state independent from culture, and the culture-mediated subjective consciousness of

places of reception, not of mission. Monks do not reside in the hospital as Catholic priests do, they are not frequently

seen among the sick, and most of them have no specific preparation for clinical work, there are few Buddhist volunteers

assisting the chaplaincy’s work and their assistance consists mainly in distributing printed material among the sick.

52 Information retrieved from: http://cafe.daum.net/careseoul/4ynO/1 (accessed June 6 2013).

53 Information obtained from OPH sources during a personal visit to the OPH office in Seoul. There are also many lay

volunteers organized by parish groups that visit the sick in the hospitals around the parish area.

54 This is usually the case with hospitals of non-Catholic Christian religious affiliation: for example, Severance Hospital

and Ehwa University Mokdong hospital. In a similar way, CMC hospitals allow non-Catholic Christian pastoral activities,

but not the establishment of a non-Catholic chaplaincy office.

55 According to Fr. P. Hong, the work done with the sick and their relatives occupies an approximate 95% of the total

load of chaplaincy work.

56 To name the priests and nuns working at clinical chaplaincies, I will employ indifferently the terms “pastors”,

“chaplains” or “caregivers”. When I want to include lay volunteers in the category, I will say instead “chaplaincy

personnel”. When no particular clarification is made, “clinical chaplaincy” or “chaplaincy” refers to Catholic

chaplaincies.

61

disease57. On the other hand, the notion of suffering goes beyond that of illness, in an attempt to

embrace the complexity, particularity and fluidity of the personal experience of illness58.

My intention is to expose the spiritual disruption described in the illness narratives collected

through interviews. The point I would like to stress is that these are not only in contrast to the

rationalistic and external narratives of purely medical accounts (the “disease” side of the story), but

also go beyond the realm of suffering if the notion of suffering is to be necessarily linked to physical

sensation and pain. The suffering and infirmity described here are not always caused by disease, and

relate more to the realm of the spiritual and emotional, to the domain of the understanding and

acceptation of the self and of interpersonal relations.

I have tried to enunciate the different aspects of suffering in a realistic way, keeping

interpretation to a minimum. Since all patients have as many similarities as differences, the account

is not to be taken as a fixed pattern, but as an impressionistic representation built on the variety and

richness of many different experiences. In congruence with the research field, the narrative is limited

to Catholic patients and more specifically, to those gravely ill, since they are usually the first and

foremost ‘clients’ of clinical pastors. It is based on interviews with 10 priests and nuns who are

presently working or have worked in the recent past in different clinical chaplaincies. I interviewed

most of them in the hospital setting.

According to their accounts, at an initial stage, when patients have just been hospitalized, they

undergo the shock of learning that they are “seriously ill”. The sudden, unexpected onset of a serious,

life-threatening disease brings about a sense of incredulity, the incapacity to react that results from

having lost grounds that had never before been put to question. Some patients are psychologically

and socially blocked as if – as is commonly said – they had “received a blow”.

This initial stage is normally followed by reactions like rebellion, anger and resistance to accept

the illness. Feelings of loss and helplessness, sadness, depression and discouragement are also

frequent. Hospitalization can provoke a sense of loss of personal identity due to the fact that social or

professional positions that were evident until recently turn invisible. To add to that, patients in

hospitals are called just by their names without titles and they wear uniforms that look all the same.

This brings about personal instability and the psychological urge to exit this situation as soon as

possible59.

Through physical weakness, the person loses self-sufficiency and protection and becomes more

vulnerable. Physical sensitiveness is flanked by psychological and emotional sensitiveness. Patients

become extremely fragile and emotionally dependent on the affection and support of those around

them. But just as simple gestures are deeply appreciated, many also feel abandoned and lonely, and

hold multiple silent expectations from people close to them60.

Past experiences that had been under control before seem to now flow to surface and

overwhelm the patient’s inner world. The retrospective view becomes acute, causing the emergence

of aspects of the self that were not completely new but that had not appeared with the same clarity

57 Cf. Singer and Baer, 63-99: What is Health? Experiencing Illness, Knowing Disease.

58 Cf. Kleinmann.

59 Fr. R. Choi.

60 This is a generalized statement among interviewed pastors.

62

and distinction in the previous situation. Remorse and regret about errors and mistakes, hurt feelings

and wounds, usually referred to closer family members, resurface61. This mental trip to the past also

responds to a need for understanding, to a quest for the cause of the present situation.

In the religious domain, sensitiveness and aspirations become also more pressing and acute.

One priest mentioned to me that you can see patients who start shedding tears at the beginning of a

hospital mass and cannot stop until the end. Ceremonies that would not have touched them in an

ordinary situation now provoke deep emotions. Many crave for spiritual support in the form of

prayers, masses or other invisible solidarities. The aspiration to receive consolation and help from

God – including physical healing – and to experience his closeness is deeply sensed62.

Some feel culpability for having abandoned their life of faith in the past. They fear that God

might stay away from them now, just as they did back then; that God might be punishing them

because of past mistakes and religious coldness. Others experience culpability because they cannot

keep up with their religious practices as exemplarily as before63.

Another common trait are the multiple disruptions caused by uncertainty about the future: a fear

that sometimes can be immense before the prospect of death and of what awaits beyond; the

temptation of falling into complete despair; or anxiety and concrete worries concerning financial

issues, family members’ future, etc.

From the evidence above, it is possible to infer that clinical pastors approach these ‘pictures’

based on some common presuppositions. In the first place, the belief that, spiritually speaking,

everybody is ill and therefore in need of healing. Secondly, the certainty that moral suffering emerges

with every disease because diseases are not suffered by pure bodies but by human persons. Even

when the issues that concern the sick are unrelated to their illness, the general downfall caused by it

would allow these aspects to emerge. Finally, the conviction that such suffering is not cured by

medical healing alone, much more so when illness is not its root but the occasion for it to manifest.

To sum up, spiritual suffering in the clinical context is represented as an existential crisis

brought about by illness and felt by the sick as a disruption of the old self. The care offered by

chaplaincy members could then be provisionally outlined as spiritual accompaniment during a time

of crisis.

Clinical Pastoral Care and the Healthcare Industry

After having delimited the boundaries of spiritual care, we can question its position inside the

hospital system. What is the role of chaplaincies within this system? Are their mission and agency to

be connected somehow with the mission and agency of the medical staff and to those of the hospital

as a whole? If hospitals aim at healing, how is the spiritual care offered by clinical caregivers related

to that?

61

Sister R. Do. 62

Fr. R. Choi, Sister L. Kim. 63

Fr. R. Choi, Fr. D. Kim, Sister L. Kim.

63

As suggested before, clinical pastoral caregivers firmly underpin the idea of the unity of the

human person. Their vision is that human healing occurs when a holistic care is offered, a care that

encompasses all the multiple aspects of infirmity, when they come to surface with the occasion of

disease. This common vision is probably nurtured by the original character of hospitals, which were

institutions of religious inspiration conceived to look after the poor, the abandoned and the sick with

an all-embracing care64.

Even if this character is kept –at least ideally– in hospitals of Christian religious affiliation, it

does not seem to be the rule anymore in urban secular hospitals65. Secular hospitals as systems don’t

include any service that addresses spiritual or emotional suffering. Besides, in large healthcare

institutions of the fast-paced metropolis, patients are seen by their doctors for an average of 2-3

minutes a day and sometimes even only for few seconds. It is evident that these lightning-speed

contacts are insufficient to create any personal bond between patients and doctors. The level of

empathy and human contact cannot but be very low66.

Functional and economic reasons stand also behind the policy of systematically reducing the

time of hospitalization to the minimum possible. With few exceptions, patients in Seoul very rarely

spend more than a week in a row hospitalized. Consideration towards aspects other than the strictly

medical cannot, therefore, be taken for granted. Spiritual, emotional and psychological care is left

outside. The most that hospital services reach out to is to provide financial counseling through social

workers, and even this has been a relatively recent advance67.

In an OPH analysis of the conditions where spiritual healing has to be given, the current trends

of the national health care industry were pinpointed as liberalization, privatization (profit),

informatization and specialization. These trends were seen as indicators of a commercial treatment of

healing, where healing becomes another exchange product in the market-dominated society. Within

the so called ‘emotional capitalism’68, even affective and spiritual values would be subject to

monetary price. The value of service to the suffering would then be relative to the emerging values of

profit, competition and efficacy69.

This picture places the prospected healthcare industry and the Catholic idea of healthcare on

opposite extremes. But quite paradoxically, it also opens the possibility of a closer cooperation

between medical and spiritual healing, between hospitals and clinical chaplaincies.

In the present situation, chaplaincies are inside hospital buildings but outside the hospital

system. Before the latter, they are outsiders who have been let in, who play non-competing sideline

functions rather than parallel and complementary ones. The aspiration of Catholic clinical caregivers

64

Cf. Office for the Pastoral Care of non-Catholic Hospitals of the Diocese of Seoul, 10; Risse, chapters 2-3.

65 Cf. Donghyeon Kyeong, The Pastoral Care of Hospitals seen from the perspective of a ‘New Evangelization’, in

Office for the Pastoral Care of non-Catholic Hospitals of the Diocese of Seoul, 9-21. For a more global perspective, cf.

Risse, chapter 9 onwards.

66 Fr. R. Choi, Sister R. Do.

67 Sister L. Kim.

68 Eva Illouz, Cold Intimacies: the Making of Emotional Capitalism, Polity Press, UK & USA 2007. Cited by

Donghyeon Kyeong, 16.

69 Cf. Donghyeon Kyeong, 16-18.

64

is that hospitals broaden their scope in order to provide integral healthcare. Hospitals should

overcome narrow specialization and accompany medical cure with the offer of an emotional,

psychological and spiritual care. Clinical chaplaincies should form and integral part of hospital

systems and their healing mission70.

Interesting enough, this is precisely what ‘emotional capitalism’ would allow. According to Fr. P.

Hong, head of the OPH, there is actually a growing openness to these aspects in the last few years.

The presence of chaplains is already among the criteria used to rate and certify hospitals, and some

hospitals have even taken the initiative of asking the diocese to establish chaplaincies inside them.

The final outcome of this transformation of the health care industry is difficult to predict. What

is clear is that, whether from inside or from outside the system, clinical pastors think of their role as a

necessary complement to that of medicine, as an aid to the parallel healing that should always

accompany any truly holistic – humane – curing process.

The Making of ‘Paramedical’ Caregivers

The gradual creation of clinical chaplaincies across the medical geography of Seoul meant not only

an expansion of the pastoral attention to the sick, but also its professionalization. Spiritual care is an

essential part of the mission of priests and, depending on their charisms, of some communities of

nuns as well. Clinical situations, however, required a particular approach. The specificity of this care

demanded training and professionalization.

The personnel initiating clinical chaplaincies (priests and nuns) started to receive units of CPE,

adopting a practice-based learning model that had long proved efficacious in the US71. Despite its

origin in the Protestant world in America, in Korea the program was first introduced and

implemented within the Catholic Church, and even today, when CPE programs are being offered in

more centers across the country and under diverse religious inspirations (non-Catholic Christian

hospitals and Theology Colleges, and a Buddhist hospital), Catholic programs are still the most

prestigious and numerous72.

Each unit of CPE education combines actual pastoral work with a reflective exercise done upon

that experience in group seminars and through personal coaching, under the guidance of a supervisor.

During the training, each participant looks back questioningly at oneself in the act of attending to the

sick or to other potential ‘clients’ and tries to identify personal prejudices, limitations or weaknesses

that are obstacles to the understanding and reception of the patients’ issues and their roots. Through

this exercise, the potential pastor also discovers his or her own past personal wounds and the marks

left by those on the present self, and how they affect relationships with others. In brief, it is an

education to broaden the knowledge of the self and its openness to the other, which has the final

purpose of habilitating the pastor to listen and empathize better with the client and the client’s

70

Fr. R. Choi, Fr. J. Kim. 71

Cf. for ex., the American website of the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education: http://www.acpe.edu/. 72

Sister L. Kim, Fr. I. Woo.

65

issues73. Counseling techniques are also taught, in order to improve the pastor’s capacity to engage in

dialogue.

The diocese of Seoul erected its own official CPE center in 2007 with the purpose of providing

continuous formation to clinical pastors working in non-CMC hospitals of the city. At present, doing

at least one 400 hour-unit is a requisite. Nevertheless, all caregivers I interviewed had undergone this

program 2 or 3 times, as they are advised to repeat it every time they feel they need it74.

Many of the lay volunteers also undergo education to be better qualified for their service. The

reason is that even if they frequently do material preparatory and assistance work, they also

accompany and comfort the sick. The program for lay volunteers offered by the diocese of Seoul

consists of 4 levels, which can be taken independently, making up a total of 60-80 hours75. Some of

them even take CPE units.

The identity of clinical pastors is thus shaped and consolidated in the field, in a process of

personal transformation through systematic and conscientious training. For the making of clinical

chaplains, “practice makes perfect” is truly applicable. Now this directs us to yet another feature that

deserves to be highlighted: the bilateral character of this identity building. In effect, as CPE

dynamics reveal, the clinical pastor’s professional profile is shaped by and upon continuous

interaction with the patients.

In any case, CPE only adds a specific preparation to the previous generic identity of priests or

nuns as pastors or spiritual caregivers, which is the basis on which their relation with the sick is

frequently built. In fact, people encounter a guarantee of secrecy for whatever they wish to confide in

the consecrated character of both priests and nuns76. They also expect an orientation wherein the

outlines come from a religious and moral instance that legitimates it. But more importantly, the sick

access a realm of spiritual power and support which has its source in God himself.

The strong reliance on the pastors’ prayers is a manifestation of what has just been said. In most

cases, prayers are the initial interest of patients who appreciate the visit of a priest or of a nun. Even

when those praying for and with them are lay volunteers, the sick find comfort and security in the

support of an extended spiritual community: the Church.

Clinical training acquires a key importance when the ecclesial role of priests and nuns is not

immediately accepted. The reasons for indifference or rejection can be many but, in any case,

caregivers try to employ all their art and skills to stay close to the patients until interior resistance is

overcome.

73 Sister S. Park. This is the reason why it can be offered to believers of different religions. In fact, the participants in the

CPE programs running during April 2013 in the Convent of the Sacred Coeur in Yongsan were: one Episcopalian female

minister, one Catholic priest, one Buddhist nun, 2 Catholic nuns and 5 Lay Catholics.

74 Personal visit to the CPE Center of the Diocese and conversation with employees. Also, Fr. P. Hong. More

information can be retrieved at: http://cafe.daum.net/cpecenter (accessed June 6 2013).

75 Cf. S. Hong, Fr. I. Woo.

76 Sister R. Do.

66

Paradoxically, the identity of clinical caregivers appears to be stronger among non-Catholic

hospitals’ chaplains than among CMC hospitals77’. One reason seems to be the fact that, since

Catholic hospitals are run by the Diocese, the priests or nuns assigned to them are simultaneously

administrators and pastors, and oftentimes more administrators than pastors. Their focus is often

diverted towards directive and organizational aspects and, even as pastors, more centered in the

interaction with the hospital staff than in the direct care for the patients and their families. In fact,

CPE units are not compulsory for pastors working at Catholic hospitals78.

By contrast, in secular hospitals pastors are penetrating a foreign structure where there is no

institutional recognition, support or expectation about their work. Chaplaincy offices usually occupy

a small area divided into two or three spaces, one of which is kept as a place for prayer and worship.

They are frequently located in the basement floor, near the staff’s changing rooms or dining room,

close to machine rooms or in other marginal places. In most cases, the hospital staff does not know

what the chaplaincy is for or misunderstand its function. Even most of the Catholics who are

hospitalized learn about the existence of the chaplaincy only when they receive a visit from there.

Refusals to talk or unwelcoming reactions are part of the expected daily routine79. To work in such

conditions, a great dose of personal conviction and sense of mission is needed. And in fact, most of

those who started chaplaincies in non-CMC hospitals had volunteered to work in this task, out of

personal motivation80.

Finally, is there any difference in the way priests and nuns assume the role of clinical pastor? A

survey conducted in 2010 by the OPH among hospital staff, patients, lay volunteers, priests and nuns

from 25 non-CMC hospitals shows that, overall, nuns are slightly more appreciated for their

preparation than priests are, even if by a very small difference, except in the case of the nuns

themselves, who judged comparatively lowly of the specific qualification of priests81. Nuns were also

the ones to consider that the actual number of priests –and especially of nuns– working in this task

was insufficient, while priests usually showed less dissatisfaction82. These and other results seem to

suggest that in general nuns are more focused on the personal relations with patients than priests,

whose attention is somehow divided by the celebration of sacramental rites, which is their own task.

However, both seem to be preferred in different occasions by different patients83.

Clinical Pastoral Care and Spiritual Healing

If spiritual care results in spiritual healing, how this does concretely happen? What is the therapy, if

we can speak of one, to obtain spiritual healing and what are the effects?

77

Fr. P. Hong, Fr. R. Lee. 78

Fr. P. Hong, Fr. R. Lee. 79

This is a unanimous statement among the clinical pastors interviewed. 80

Fr. D. Kim, Fr. R. Lee. 81

Cf. Office for the Pastoral Care of non-Catholic Hospitals of the Diocese of Seoul, 64-67. 82

Cf. Office for the Pastoral Care of non-Catholic Hospitals of the Diocese of Seoul, 64.

83 Sister R. Do. Occasionally, even the lay are preferred, as some patients feel more comfortable with them on topics

they would find harder to deal with consecrated persons like priests or nuns: Sister S. Park, Fr. S. Hong.

67

Spiritual healing is multi-layered and complex just as spiritual suffering in a clinical context is.

Even so, pastors represent it as possessing certain coherence, where its multiple aspects are

integrated in one. The direct help of God in sacramental rites constitutes, undoubtedly, the reference

point. As the present head of the OPH explained to me, the pastors’ continuous presence by the sick

is needed to bring about prayer and, from there, sacraments naturally follow84.

I will start by examining the external features of this pastoral activity. Due to the above

mentioned restrictive policies regarding hospitalization periods, the time for interaction with patients

is short85. Calculating the usual proportion of Catholics as an approximate 10% of the total

population, large hospitals could count on 40-200 Catholic patients rotating each week, to be

attended by 1 to 3 chaplaincy pastors. Some strategy of selection is obviously required to try to reach

in a timely way those who more urgently need attention: people facing imminent and serious surgery;

those that are coming back to the hospital due to relapse, those who are gravely ill – mostly cancer

patients –, and those who ask for the presence of a pastor.

So the first step is the search for beneficiaries or “clients”. Some hospitals provide chaplaincies

with information about the patients’ religion. Others allow access only to general data about the

patients, so it is up to the chaplaincy’s resources to find out who among those needing urgent

attention is Catholic. In these cases, lay volunteers frequently help find out, visiting the different

floors. Some chaplains tour the hospital on a regular basis, to make themselves available to whoever

might need their attention. The ways are many and there is no standard practice because the

circumstances for an encounter are often unforeseeable.

Once potential clients have been listed, the priest or nun – frequently they divide the hospital

areas among themselves – goes to visit them. In approaching the sick, they are clear on the need to

combine two attitudes. On the one hand, they should try to be at hand and offer their help without

waiting to be asked or without giving up to initial rejections: a pastor should know how to wait for a

better occasion to go back. On the other hand, they are there to adjust to the patients’ needs and

situation, helping those who ask for it and as much as they ask for it. The initiative in approaching

has a meaning of concern and availability, never of insistence or pressure86. Similarly, pastors need to

spend with their clients all the time they need, without restrictions. Numeric results are not important.

As one of them was telling me, in a hospital the chaplain should be the idlest; he should have no

possessions or unrelated occupations. “Once you sit down to attend to someone, you don’t stand up

to leave until the patient is totally finished”87.

It seems to me that the first attitude is a spontaneous result of the presupposition mentioned

earlier, that every person has ‘issues’ to be healed. As regards the second attitude, respect for the will

of each patient, it is taken as a basic principle of spiritual care because the patients’ free decisions

and attitudes are considered central to healing.

84

Fr. P. Hong. 85

Fr. R. Choi. 86

This is a unanimous statement among the pastors interviewed.

87 Fr. R. Lee. This freedom and focus are more difficult to obtain in the pastoral work in the parish, the ordinary structure

for the spiritual attention of the faithful. In parishes, there is a general lack of time, both in the pastor and among the

faithful, and attention is scattered in many different fronts (J. Kim). Also Sister R. Do, Fr. J. Kim, Sister L. Kim, Sister S.

Park, Fr. I. Woo.

68

‘Therapy’ then largely consists of sympathetic accompaniment. When the sick perceive a space

of acceptance of their self, they usually open up and bring to surface those aspects that need healing.

This has already an effect of inner relief, a sense of unburdening and liberation, especially in the

present social and cultural context. For many, this is a unique occasion to dig inside and bring things

out88.

As a CPE supervisor, Sister S. Park is in a privileged position to have a feel of societal changes

affecting the inner world of individuals. In her view, the overflow of information in contemporary

society is accompanied by an increasing absence of emotional empathy. The time to meet close

friends, to listen and to be listened to personally, to share our inner world, and ultimately to face

ourselves is shrinking. The present moment is characterized by a growing alienation, with many

ignoring their deep inner selves, with its needs, claims and aspirations89.

Such alienation would explain the interior collapse of some, especially among high ranking

professional men, before the sudden and multiple deprivation (of health, of professional and social

status, of a prospected future, of control over one’s situation) brought along by disease90. Some

caregivers pointed at the predominance of social and gender roles as its main cause. Men building

their self-understanding according to social expectations and compensations will naturally undergo

an identity crisis the moment they cannot match those expectations anymore. A chaplaincy nun

would explain how some ‘important’ men would burst into incontrollable tears when resistance to be

simply oneself was broken – to the surprise of those around – and how she would encourage them to

cry until exhaustion91.

At this stage, pastoral accompaniment is aimed at helping patients in the effort to reorganize

their lives. However, clinical pastors are not there to give solutions or ready-made answers, but to

empathize, accompany, open horizons of sense and understanding, and support the patient’s personal

path towards inner reconciliation. In relation to illness, such reconciliation can involve the effort to

detach the personal self from its multiple social identities in order to face frontally one’s nakedness

and admit its present poverty. It can also mean not to shield the self behind difficulty or suffering, or

let it be paralyzed by its past92.

Whatever is the specific content, the ultimate result of this process should be acceptance: the

acceptance of the personal physical, psychological and spiritual reality. Only this opens the sick

person to look for new possibilities of action on reality, allowing a focus on cooperation in the cure,

in the little that the sick person is sometimes able to do93. For those facing death, instead, acceptance

seems to make the biological end biographical. Through acceptance, essential passivity is actively

embraced. An inescapable fact is integrated into the sphere of personal responsibility, consenting to

position the self before death and reorder the past. The role of clinical pastors seems to be to guide

such an alignment process by providing religious references such as the certainty of God’s mercy, the

spiritual value of suffering, the goal of every human life and the hope of an afterlife. In this way, the

time spent in hospital becomes for many a rare opportunity to look back at themselves, confront

88

Fr. I. Woo. 89

Sister S. Park. 90

Sister L. Kim. 91

Sister L. Kim. 92

Sister L. Kim. 93

Sister L. Kim, Fr. J. Kim, Fr. R. Lee.

69

repressed memories or issues, heal wounds, return to focus on the essentials, solve existential

dilemmas and make fundamental choices that impact on one’s life as a whole94.

The above is already deeply permeated by the religious dimension of healing, as operated in

prayer and in the sacraments. Clinical caregivers see these in close connection with the

accompaniment mentioned above, relating acceptance with openness to God. Their view is that inner

openness to reality goes together with openness to help from outside and above95. It is guided by and

leads to recourse to God and hope in his care and intervention. This kind of reliance, frequently

expressed in prayer, has already a healing effect. Appreciation for what is around us can start then,

followed by gratefulness even for very small details96.

The climax of spiritual care is the administration of divine healing. Two sacraments, categorized

precisely as ‘sacraments of healing’, are in particular supposed to convey it: ‘Penance’ and the

‘Anointing of the Sick’ - an all-purpose sacrament to match the needs of those suffering from grave

disease. The official teaching of the Catholic Church lists down its effects as follows: “the uniting of

the sick person to the passion of Christ, for his own good and that of the whole Church; the

strengthening, peace, and courage to endure in a Christian manner the sufferings of illness or old age;

the forgiveness of sins, if the sick person was not able to obtain it through the sacrament of Penance;

the restoration of health, if it is conducive to the salvation of his soul; the preparation for passing

over to eternal life”97. In brief, it encompasses all that spiritual healing in a clinical context means

and eventually can also lead to physical healing98.

Some of the faithful receive the Anointing of the Sick before being hospitalized, as a

preparation for that situation. In many cases though, the sacrament of the sick is asked by the patients

themselves or by close relatives at hospitals, in the peak moments of anxiety and suffering, when

emotional and psychological trouble are acute; most commonly immediately before surgeries or

when there is a downfall in the evolution of illness. The rite is short -around 10 minutes- and is

celebrated when needed, any time of the day, there where the sick person is99.

With no aim at being exhaustive, I would like to highlight some aspects of this rite. In the first

part, for those who want it, the forgiveness of God is offered in the sacrament of Penance. If the

person is unconscious or not able to speak, forgiveness is granted for those sins of which there is

repentance. Reconciliation with God and moral healing are thus integrated in the Anointing. The

central moment of the sacrament proper is the anointing with oil on the forehead and hands of the

94

Fr. I. Woo. 95

Sister L. Kim. 96

Sister L. Kim. 97 Catholic Church, n. 1532. Following the revision of this sacrament in the 1960’s, after the II Vatican Council, it lost

the connotation of last comfort before death and became more of a healing instance, a comfort to face illness and to

eventually overcome it.

98 If Baptism is a ritual passage from death to life, a new spiritual birth, then these sacraments represent the passage from

spiritual sickness to health or from spiritual death to resurrection. This is the reason why their healing power reaches only

those who are already in the Church. The infirmity targeted belongs to personal biography, not to a common natural

inheritance. In this paper we will focus on just this sacrament because the administration of the sacrament of Penance is

tied by a strict vow of secrecy.

99 For this reason, the petition of this sacrament in the 5 big hospitals of Seoul where the gravely sick are concentrated is

very frequent: from 5-10 cases a week in SNU hospital to 10-20 cases in Asan hospital.

70

sick. Previous to that, the priest lays hands on the head of the sick to pray for her/him. The

importance of these gestures is noteworthy. Most priests manifest that people are moved and soothed

by them. For the sick, the sense of touch seems to channel a tangible experience of the presence and

help of God. Together with touch, hearing is also important. Through the words preceding and

accompanying the gestures performed, a spiritual value is given to what they are undergoing, and the

help and healing of God are invoked100. Finally, for those patients who are prepared, spiritual

nourishment is provided by giving them to eat or drink the Eucharist101.

The sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick has also a strong communal aspect. Relatives and

other people close to the patient are convoked to join in prayer. This way the sick person feels

supported by those around him, while relatives participate in the healing and consolation offered.

What are the perceptible effects of the Anointing of the Sick? According to caregivers, after the

administration of the sacrament patients are visibly moved and relieved, more serene, and the fear

and anxiety preceding surgeries notably subside. Many manifest joy, gratefulness and consolation.

When the sacrament is administered to those facing imminent death, relatives frequently comment

that the sick faced death with hope and great peace of mind102.

But beyond the emotional or psychological effects, there are also physical ones. Pastors assure

that repeatedly after the Anointing, people experience an effective healing from illness, remarkable

improvements in their medical condition or faster recoveries. In their opinion these changes don’t

respond to purely medical factors and some even consider them in the category of little miracles. In

other occasions, health improvements are clearly attributed to a change in the patient’s attitude

towards illness. Liberation from burdening issues, the realistic acceptance of illness and a positive

and active attitude towards it help patients in their struggle against disease and to recover better and

more speedily103.

The Expansion of Spiritual Healing

We have seen how pastors discovered a new field for care in non-CMC hospitals. Through

negotiation with hospital administrations, presence and activity at these hospitals were consolidated

until they became permanent with the gradual establishment of clinical chaplaincies.

My intention now is to focus on the functional interaction between the chaplaincy and the

different groups in the hospital system, namely: a) patients and relatives, and b) medical and non-

medical staff. Through examining whether the chaplaincies’ role is confirmed, strengthened,

questioned, rejected or viewed otherwise by hospital agents and patients, I intend to trace the growth

path of spiritual healing inside hospitals.

100 Even if someone can’t talk, if he/she had the desire to receive the sacrament of Penance for the forgiveness of sins

can effectively receive it.

101 The Eucharist is the most important sacrament of the Catholic Church. It designates a rite as well as the consecrated

bread resulting from that rite. Catholics believe that in the Eucharist Christ himself is contained (cf. Catholic Church, n.

1324. See also nn. 1322 onwards). 102

On this point, the testimonies of all priests are unanimous. 103

Sister R. Do, Fr. D. Kim, R. Lee.

71

For this purpose, I will draw from the results of the 2010 OPH survey I referred to earlier. As

mentioned then, the respondents included hospitalized Catholic patients, medical and non-medical

staff and chaplaincy personnel from 25 non-CMC hospitals. Since it was an update of a similar

survey done at the initial stage of the OPH, in 2004, it has the supplementary value of providing

comparative data as well as additional insights104.

a) Patients and relatives:

The particular character of clinical pastoral care was shaped within the hospitals themselves. As

shown earlier, clinical caregivers are made such in the relation with their clients. Now survey results

show a high and growing appreciation of their role by the sick. 83% of 645 patients manifested that

they were satisfied with the Catholic chaplaincy’s activity, either highly (42.6%) or moderately

(40.4%). When compared to the year 2004, satisfaction levels had increased in a substantial way105.

Significantly, these levels were higher in direct proportion to the time spent in hospital by the

respondent. Likewise, the most numerous complaints, coming generally from hospitals with more

than 1000 beds, referred to the fact that an immediate meeting with the pastor had not been possible

when required (6%)106. Higher results were obtained when asking patients for the therapeutic value

of spiritual care (i.e., peace of mind and physical healing effects). 98.8% agreed that it was of help:

‘of great help’ (66.4%) or ‘of certain help’ (32.4%)107.

From these results, we can conclude that spiritual care provided by chaplaincies is not only

shaped but also confirmed in its healing role by the patients. The relation between caregivers and

patients is then two-way, configuring a feedback pattern: care-giving benefits the sick while it also

makes clinical chaplains; positive evaluation of the care received further confirms and strengthens

the chaplaincy’s role, contributing to expand its supply, which again benefits the sick.

Caregivers often stressed that cooperation of family members is extremely important for

spiritual healing and has remarkable repercussions on physical healing, too. The reason could be that,

because patients lack moral strength due to physical weakness, they often need the support and help

of people around them to keep their life of faith going and to face illness with a positive attitude.

Besides, the range of issues related to hospitalization where the family intervenes is very wide in

Korea108. So much so, that the patient cannot be considered separately from her/his family. This is the

reason why, as stated by most caregivers, spiritual support to family members is an important part of

the chaplaincy’s mission109. Especially in cases of loss of faculties but also in other occasions,

relatives are also the interlocutors of pastors, more than the patients themselves. We could therefore

conclude that, in what refers to interaction with chaplains, relatives reproduce or reinforce the

feedback pattern between chaplains and their patients, further expanding their healing offer.

104

Cf. Office for the Pastoral Care of non-Catholic Hospitals of the Diocese of Seoul. 105

Cf. Office for the Pastoral Care of non-Catholic Hospitals of the Diocese of Seoul, 46. 106

Cf. Office for the Pastoral Care of non-Catholic Hospitals of the Diocese of Seoul, 44-46. 107

Cf. Office for the Pastoral Care of non-Catholic Hospitals of the Diocese of Seoul, 49-50. Cf. also 64-67 on the

professionalism of the spiritual care provided by clinical chaplaincies’ personnel. 108

Fr. R. Choi, Sister R. Do, Fr. J. Kim. 109

Fr. R. Choi, Sister R. Do, Fr. J. Kim.

72

On a slightly different but complementary note, we cannot miss the fact that attention to the

elderly is also a quantitatively growing area among the tasks of the Korean Catholic Church. Even

within the general aging population of Korea, the Catholic population is a segment aging at a higher

speed than the average110. Furthermore, according to the 2011 Statistics of the Catholic Church in

Korea, the only sacrament where there had been an increase with respect to the previous year was the

Anointing of the Sick, with 18,752 cases countrywide. This meant a rise of 5.8% as compared to

2010111. Even if these proportions need not be definitive –the 2012 Statistics show a decrease of this

sacrament from 2011 – past years’ data seem to confirm this is a general tendency112. Considering the

connection between age, disease and hospitalization, the growth of clinical care as a pastoral area

seems to be a probable future.

b) Hospital staff:

Chaplains often judge poorly the hospital staff’s awareness of their role. They say that some confuse

clinical chaplaincies with mission outposts or worship service providers, or mention the reservations

some doctors seem to have about their presence in hospitals. In general, they tell of an unawareness

of the real nature of their work by hospital staff members, even if admitting that things are slowly

improving113.

Survey results show a differentiated reality: 77.6% of the medical doctors, nurses and other

staff were acquainted with the existence of clinical chaplaincies in non-CMC general hospitals.

When asked if they knew what the activities of these chaplaincies were, there was a big gap among

staff members. Compared to 90% of Catholics who responded affirmatively, there were only 44.5%

of non-Catholics who did so114. This pattern was repeated in the evaluation of the importance of

chaplaincy activities in hospitals. While patients and chaplaincy members answered ‘very important’

(69.1% and 75.7%) or ‘moderately important’ (28.3% and 22.8%), only 32.1% of hospital staff

respondents answered ‘very important’ while 47% said it was ‘moderately important’115. The notable

difference in evaluation is largely due to the responses of non-Catholics who, as mentioned earlier,

are not so aware of what such activities are about. Indeed, only 14.8% responded ‘very important’.

50.6% of them answered ‘moderately important’ while another 31.8% chose ‘normal importance’116.

When asked whether spiritual care helped psychological serenity and physical healing, the

majority of hospital staff respondents answered positively: 53.8% said it was of great help, while

44.4% said it helped moderately. The rest of the answers were almost insignificant. But again, this

110

Cf. CBCK, Statistics 2011, 7-10, 30-31. 111

Cf. CBCK, Statistics 2011, 33. 112

The 1996-2012 Statistics of the Catholic Church in Korea are available as e-books in

http://www.cbck.or.kr/bbs/bbs_list.asp?board_id=K7200 (accessed June 9 2013). 113

Fr. R. Choi, Fr. P. Hong, Fr. J. Kim, Sister L. Kim. 114

Cf. Office for the Pastoral Care of non-Catholic Hospitals of the Diocese of Seoul, 42-44. 115

The other possible responses were ‘normal importance’, ‘not so important’ and ‘not important at all’. Cf. Office for

the Pastoral Care of non-Catholic Hospitals of the Diocese of Seoul, 44-45. 116

Cf. Office for the Pastoral Care of non-Catholic Hospitals of the Diocese of Seoul, 44-45.

73

result was the combination of 72.9% of Catholics rating this help the highest possible, as opposed to

only half that percentage of non-Catholics rating the same117.

In conclusion, hospital staff showed diverse judgments about the spiritual care being offered in

hospitals and its healing effects. Even if on the whole their evaluation was positive, the degree of

awareness and appreciation varied notably between the Catholic and non-Catholic staff, the latter’s

being considerably lower.

The pattern of relation between the chaplaincies’ activity and that of the hospital staff appeared

to be synergistic. This seems clearly the case whenever spiritual care is considered to enhance

medical healing. However, opinions were asymmetrical as to whether there is also synergy going on

in the opposite sense. Whereas the opinion of clinical pastors was never so positive, the majority of

the hospital staff responded affirmatively when asked if they were closely cooperating with clinical

pastors in the care for the sick. Heterogeneity between the responses of Catholics and non-Catholics

was again evident. Among non-Catholics, those who answered ‘no’ were almost in a 50%-50% ratio

with those who responded they do cooperate. Instead, Catholics who responded positively reached

77.2%118.

The above showed that hospital staff members did not constitute a homogeneous group.

However my opinion is that, grouped in a single category, they still affirmed the clinical role of the

chaplaincy, even if to a lesser degree than patients did.

The Internal and External Boundaries to Expansion

With ‘external boundary’ to expansion, I am referring to a limit to the expansion of spiritual healing

set from outside, as opposed to ‘internal boundaries’ or limits coming from the suppliers of spiritual

healing themselves.

For the administrations of non-CMC hospitals, the expansion of spiritual healing inside them as

verified in these last 10 years meant no structural reorganization or changeover. In fact, the

establishment of Catholic clinical chaplaincies meant little else than providing them with a space

somewhere inside the hospital building. Financially, chaplaincies are fully supported by the local

Church or the religious groups they represent. They receive neither pay nor other systematic facilities

from the hospital. One clinical pastor would tell me how, whenever a new nurse was in charge of the

ICU ward, he would be stopped at the entrance and explained he was not allowed to visit, until a

staff member who was already acquainted with him would clarify matters119.

Spiritual caregivers vision a qualitative expansion of spiritual healing that would imply the

passage from unilateral synergy with medical healing to a reciprocal one. What they aspire to is to be

given a place within the hospital system, to switch from being a more or less sophisticated extra to

medical care to being some sort of ‘paramedical’ care. Their ideal appears close to those holistic

117

Cf. Office for the Pastoral Care of non-Catholic Hospitals of the Diocese of Seoul, 49-50. 118

Cf. Office for the Pastoral Care of non-Catholic Hospitals of the Diocese of Seoul, 51-52. 119

Fr. I. Woo.

74

approaches to healing that focus not only on managing disease but on treating the whole person,

including emotional and spiritual dimensions120.

One of the OPH survey questions evaluated the potential consensus of hospital staff on

precisely this aspiration. It asked: Is the holistic care of the patients’ body and soul necessary, and

should clinical pastors be part of the clinical team to discuss and collaborate with medical doctors

and nurses?121 Just as with CPE, the inspiration for this solution – that pastors be part of the clinical

team – is probably coming from the US, where very often inter-faith chaplaincies form part of the

hospital system.

An approximate 80% answered positively (25.1% ‘strongly agree’ and 57.3% ‘agree’), the

highest support coming from Catholics of all categories (37.8% ‘strongly agree’ and 55.9% ‘agree’)

and from nurses of all religions (27% ‘strongly agree’ and 60% ‘agree’). Contrarily, non-Catholic

doctors and non-medical staff showed a relatively high rate of negative answers (respectively 28.3%

and 37.2%, summing ‘partially disagree’ and a very low percentage – 2.8% and 1.2% –of ‘totally

disagree’)122.

Clinical caregivers themselves are not too optimistic. They acknowledge that the notion of

holistic healing is slowly penetrating mindsets, and mention as a back up the fact that it is starting to

be proven that the recovery period for those patients who have serenity and peace of mind is usually

shorter than that of those who don’t. Nevertheless, the predominant opinion of chaplains is that the

probability of a change of the present systematization is moderate to low123.

It is difficult to predict how things will develop in the near future. For now, the fact of being

outsiders to the health care system, something similar to permanent and thus very familiar visitors,

seems to be the most meaningful external boundary to a further qualitative expansion of spiritual

healing.

As regards the internal boundaries for this expansion, there is one identified by several pastors

and that emerges also in the 2010 OPH survey: the still insufficient qualifications of clinical pastors

and the challenge of formation124. In the survey this factor was also mentioned as their own top

difficulty by the religious congregations that send nuns to work in non-CMC hospitals125. If the

projected goal is that clinical pastors work side by side with medical staff as full members of a

clinical team, they should deepen their formation and obtain professional qualifications endorsed by

120

Cf. American Holistic Medical Association, Principles of Holistic Medicine, retrievable from

http://ahha.org/articles.asp?Id=81 (accessed June 9 2013). 121

Cf. Office for the Pastoral Care of non-Catholic Hospitals of the Diocese of Seoul, 50. 122

Cf. Office for the Pastoral Care of non-Catholic Hospitals of the Diocese of Seoul, 50-51. See also Idem, 85, showing

a predominantly positive opinion of patients and hospital staff on the disclosure of religious information of patients to

clinical chaplaincies, or 92-93, which indicates a prevalent desire among patients and hospital staff that clinical

chaplaincies expand their role. 123

Fr. R. Choi, Fr. P. Hong, Fr. J. Kim. For a numeric representation, see also Office for the Pastoral Care of non-

Catholic Hospitals of the Diocese of Seoul, 85-86. 124

Fr. R. Choi, Fr. J. Kim, Fr. P. Hong, Office for the Pastoral Care of non-Catholic Hospitals of the Diocese of Seoul,

91-92. 125

Cf. Office for the Pastoral Care of non-Catholic Hospitals of the Diocese of Seoul, 70-71. Also the chaplaincies’ lay

volunteers pointed at the lack of sufficient preparation as the top difficulty in the performance of their task.

75

official entities. The resources to qualify them locally are still limited, as is the alternative of having

potential clinical pastors sent to study abroad126.

There is another possible internal limit to the expansion of spiritual healing that is still open to

verification or falsification, constituting thus a challenge: the declining of the internal motivation of

clinical pastors, that is, the risk of bureaucratization. Survey results show that, among diocesan

priests, the predominant opinion is that the task at clinical chaplaincies is harder compared to tasks

performed in other pastoral contexts (64.5%). The most common reasons stated are the lack of

institutional support from hospitals in the form of recognition of the importance of their work and of

material facilities127. Nevertheless, the indicated will of clinical chaplains to stay in their present roles

is very high128.

This is not surprising since, as mentioned before, throughout what we could call the pioneering

stage of non-CMC hospital chaplaincies, most clinical pastors had chosen to become so by personal

initiative. Apparently things are changing now. Some priests are working in hospitals simply because

they were destined for that task, and frequently, they are having difficulty to adjust129. This could

indicate a challenge that would follow institutionalization, and that could potentially turn into an

internal boundary to the qualitative expansion of spiritual healing.

Conclusion

The spiritual healing offered by the diocese of Seoul inside non-CMC hospitals is a typical long-

standing pastoral task within the Catholic tradition. What makes of it a notable phenomenon is the

attempt to integrate spiritual healing within a holistic approach to medical care, rooting a traditional

pastoral work in the same mission and system of modern hospitals, regardless of their secular

character or eventual religious affiliation. Even if this vision is still unilaterally pursued and it is

difficult to predict whether it will actually be realized, spiritual care as offered by Catholic clinical

chaplaincies seems to be irreversibly positioned as ‘paramedical’, that is, as a necessary

accompaniment to medical care for a truly human healing. This position is further strengthened by

the evolution of the health care industry towards a market based model, centered in profit and

efficacy.

Clinical chaplaincies were able to consolidate and expand their own understanding of healing,

because they succeeded in detecting a silent but real and up to then unmet need among Catholic

patients. Some ways of conceiving holistic medicine today coincide with the conception of healing in

the Catholic world as a multifaceted and all-embracing reality. That would be the case with the

synergetic effect of spiritual healing on medical healing, which seems to be admitted by appreciative

medical staff even if it has not yet been scientifically proven. In a time of rapid changes in the

medical care industry, only time will tell whether this will be the prevailing trend.

126

Fr. P. Hong. 127

Cf. Office for the Pastoral Care of non-Catholic Hospitals of the Diocese of Seoul, 68. 21.9% responded that pastoral

working conditions were similar to others, 11.2% said they did not know and only 2.5% answered the conditions were

relatively better. 128

Office for the Pastoral Care of non-Catholic Hospitals of the Diocese of Seoul, 89-90. 90.7% of pastors (priests and

nuns) answered positively, among them 58.1% expressed the firmest will to stay in their role. 129

Cf. interviews with Fr. P. Hong, Fr. D. Kim, and Fr. R. Lee.

76

References

Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea (CBCK), 2011 Statistics of the Catholic Church in Korea (orig.: 한국

천주교주교회의, 2011년 한국천주교회통계). Retrieved from:

http://www.cbck.or.kr/bbs/bbs_read.asp?board_id=K7200&bid=13008590&page=1&key=&keyw

ord= (accessed Jun 6 2013).

한국천주교주교회의, 2012년 한국천주교회통계 (Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea, 2012 Statistics

of the Catholic Church in Korea). Published April 30 2013 and until now retrievable only in

Korean from:

http://www.cbck.or.kr/bbs/bbs_read.asp?board_id=K7200&bid=13009704&page=1&key=&keywo

rd= (accesed June 6 2013).

Catholic Church, Catechism of the Catholic Church, LEV, Rome 1997.

한국가톨릭사목연구소, “한국천주교회통계 2011 분석” (The Catholic Pastoral Institute of Korea,

Analysis of the 2011 Statistics of the Catholic Church in Korea). Retrieved from:

http://pastor.cbck.or.kr/index.php?mm_code=733&sm_code=734&tab_code=&board_mode=list&

board_no=&board_search_keyword=&board_page=1&board_search_head_word=&board_search

_part_subject=Y&board_search_part_content=Y&board_search_part_writer=N&board_mode=vie

w&board_no=111 (accessed Jun 6 2013).

Fr. R. Choi, Interview March 22 2013.

Sister R. Do, Interview April 17 2013.

Fr. P. Hong, Interview May 2 2013.

Fr. D. Kim, Interview March 22 2013.

Fr. J. Kim, Interview April 17 2013.

Sister L. Kim, Interview April 10 2013.

Arthur Kleinmann, The Illness Narratives: Suffering, Healing and the Human Condition, Basic Books, New

York 1988

Fr. R. Lee, Interview March 23 2013.

천주교 서울대교구 일반병원사목부, “서울대교구 일반병원사목의 현실과 전망. 일반병원사목부 10

주년 기념조사 결과” (Office for the Pastoral Care of non-Catholic Hospitals of the Diocese of

Seoul, Present and Future Prospects of the Pastoral of Non-Catholic Hospitals of the Diocese of

Seoul, 10th Anniversary Commemoration Survey Results, February 11 2012 Symposium

Proceedings, Seoul 2012 (private publication of limited distribution for internal use).

Sister S. Park, Interview April 13 2013.

Guenter B. Risse, Mending Bodies, Saving Souls: A History of Hospitals, Oxford University Press, USA 1999.

Steve Sangkwon Shim PhD., Cultural Landscapes of Pastoral Counseling in Asia, in “American Journal of

Pastoral Counseling”, 2002, 5: 1-2, 77-97.

77

Merrill Singer and Hans Baer, Introducing Medical Anthropolgy: A Discipline in Action, Altamira Press, New

York 2007.

Fr. R. Solis, Interview March 20 2013.

Fr. I. Woo, Interview May 28 2013.

Inshil Choe Yoon, Martyrdom and Social Activism: The Korean Practice of Catholicism, in Robert E. Buswell

Jr. (ed.), “Religions of Korea in Practice”, Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford 2007,

355-375.

Irene Yung Park holds a PhD in Theology and an MA in Philosophy. Her areas of interests are in Religion and Culture

issues, especially from a comparative perspective. She completed her education in Argentina and Italy and is presently

lecturing at Yonsei University, in Seoul, Korea.

78

PANEL 3:

Urban Aspirations in Ritual and Representation

From public prayer meetings to candlelight vigils, from to political protests to the gathering of sports

fans, urban spaces in contemporary South Korea are prime spaces for large-scale ritual action.

Participants’ accounts of these events sometimes approximate Durkheim’s classic notion of

“collective effervescence,” a transcendent feeling of the sacred collectivity where extraordinary

things can take place. Beyond participant accounts, however, reports, recordings, and images of these

material events become mediatized representations that frame the events and their purported goals.

As they circulate, they become points of reference for future events. The central questions of the

panel ask: What kinds of urban aspirations do ritualized collective practices in Seoul and other South

Korean urban environments invoke, and how do representations of these events circulate and shape

future practice?

Chair/Discussant:

Chang, Sukman (The Korean Institute for Religion and Culture)

79

Small is Sacred: Searching for New Community in the Modern City

Ha, Hong-kyu

Yonsei University

Sacred and Society

In his book The Sociological Tradition, Robert A. Nisbet (1966) wrote that “no other single concept

is suggestive of the unique role held by sociology among the social sciences in the nineteenth century,

or as reflective of its underlying premises about the nature of man and society as the concept of the

sacred” (221). However, it seems quite ironical that early social thinkers have vigorously utilized the

concept of the sacred in understanding human society during radically secularizing periods. For

instance, Emile Durkheim’s famous dichotomy of ‘the sacred and the profane,’ Max Weber’s concept

of ‘charisma,’ and Simmel’s ‘religiosity’ all reveal a fascination with the sacred/religious concepts

involved in understanding human society. Even in a later period of sociological development, the

concept of the sacred has been regarded by many social theorists as a crucial element for their

theorizing. The pervasive influence of the concept of the sacred upon the development of social

theory only proves its theoretical value in understanding society. Especially, for those who have

searched for the sacred in modern society,130 the sacred has a constant existence, that is, it has an

eternal feature evident in social life, the representation of which changes endlessly according to the

passage of time. As a matter of fact, many scholars have tried to identify the sacred as the

indispensable and vital element of social reality in general beyond narrowly defined institutionalized

religions. For them, the sacred did not vanish into air even after the traditional religions lost their

power and status as a source of morality. Religion does not simply disappear and come back as the

‘re-enchantment’ and ‘de-secularization’. Rather, it manifests itself in vitally new and potentially

productive ways.

This essay begins with the observation of the vital existence of the sacred manifested in the

religious lives of modern metropolitan people in Korea. By its vital existence, I do not intend to refer

to the rapid quantitative growth of churches and the emergence of mega-churches that have attracted

the attention of most sociologists of religion in Korea (Hong 2003). Rather, what attracts my

attention is the fact that new manifestations of being church are taking shape in Korea. Indeed, the

sacred manifests itself in the religious lives of those who create the small communities in the greatest

city. These small churches are allegedly dissatisfied not only with the traditional forms of church, but

also with the traditional church theology which puts the priority upon the quantitative growth. These

churches which are pursuing to be small communities mark the rising of various trends prominent

within the Christianity in recent years. We are not attracted to the fact that they are just small, but the

fact that they are self-consciously pursuing to be small in the metropolitan area. Although accurate

statistical figures are not available at the moment, it is an undeniable truth that the small urban

churches have a viable presence in Korea.

How do new forms of religious identity come into being? In what context? How do they

define themselves? What kind of normative claim do they give for their religious life? Having these

130

The best example can be found in Bellah’s (1970) discussion of civil religion. He suggests this concept to refer to

common elements of religious orientation that the great majority of Americans share. For him, this American civil

religion has played “a crucial role in the development of American institutions and still provides a religious dimension

for the whole fabric of American life, including the political sphere” (171).

80

questions in mind, this essay aims at the understanding of newly emerging small urban churches

through the account of the socio-religious context and the narratives in their religious lives. Thus far,

much effort has been made to explain how Korean churches could grow so rapidly, but the

quantitative growth of churches rather constitutes the socio-religious context to understand the

emergence of new forms of religious life.

Religious Energy

In understanding religious lives in small churches constructed by city dwellers, I would like to rely

upon Georg Simmel’s conception of religiosity and Michel Maffesoli’s conception of sociality, which,

I believe, contribute to reveal the vitality of their religious lives.

In Simmel’s sociology, the dialectic of forms and contents constitutes the most

comprehensive scheme for the construction of a world and for interpreting all lifestyle including

‘religion.’ Central to Simmel’s sociology of religion is the proposition that religiosity131 creates

religion, not the other way around. For him, religiosity is a permanent feature of the human being,

and is a fundamental category existing a priori to our inner nature. Religiosity, though it is an inner

quality of life, acquires its substance “when it pervades the material diversity of the world (Simmel

1997, 144). Only by being injected into the world through human interaction can religious life be

lived in specific forms and contents. That is, from the very inner quality of life, the various forms of

religious life come into being and the specific contents of religions evolve. Religiosity is a unique

impulse of ‘life’ inherent in human beings. It is not only inherent in, but is also a permanent feature

of human beings. Thus, this firm reality, i.e., “the indubitable existence of a religious need” remains

intact even when the existing religion loses its function to fulfill the religious need of people (ibid, 8-

9). Although Simmel attributes, as noted earlier, the origin of religion to human’s inner quality, i.e.,

religiosity, this unique existence can never be grasped in its pure form because it is experienced only

by some kind of combination with religious form and content. Consequently, Simmel does not

believe in the inevitable development of religious phenomenon by any single factor, but only through

historical contingency in social setting. Therefore, for him, religion is not a finished product but a

vital process that is endlessly developing.

Simmel’s sensibility about subjective factors could not escape the psychological and

emotional difficulties that modern people faced with the decline of the existing religion. At the end

of the nineteenth century when diminishing of traditional religions was an irreversible truth – a

sentiment shared by his contemporaries such as Weber and Durkheim, - Simmel observed that

modern people were not inwardly committed to an existing religion and the forms and contents of the

traditional religions failed to fulfill the need of religious persons, and began his untiring endeavour

for searching the solution to the problem. Despite the inevitable decay of church-based religion

which once nourished people’s religious minds at the end of the nineteenth century, Simmel saw that

the religious urge still existed in people’s minds, which he believed to persist despite all

‘enlightenment’. Thus, Simmel suggested a solution to the problem of religion in modern times

should be found in the religious energy or ‘religiosity’ inherent in people’s minds which would

resuscitate their religious lives in whatever form they might be.

Obviously, it is impossible to call the still-proliferating mega-churches as the decay of the

131

In his works, Simmel uses ‘religious energy,’ ‘religiousness,’ ‘religious need,’ ‘religious yearning,’ ‘ religious state of

being,’ etc. interchangeably for ‘religiosity.’

81

church-based religion in Korea. As a matter of fact, the quantitative growth of churches and the

emergence of mega-churches have been regarded as a counter-example of secularization, and a

theologian even predicted that “statistically at least South Korea quickly becoming a Christian

nation” (Cox 1995, 221). For those who have believed that modernization would necessarily lead to

a degeneration of religion both in society and in individual minds, Korea’s religious situation seems

to be the definite proof that we do not live in a secularized and disenchanted world. Peter L. Berger,

whose early work contributed to the construction of so-called ‘secularization theory,’ once told us

that “The world today…is a furiously religious as it ever was, and in some places more so than ever.

This means that a whole body of literature by historians and social scientists loosely labeled

‘secularization theory’ is essentially mistaken” (Berger 1999, 2).

Even though Berger admittedly made a right comment about the fallacy of some proponents

of secularization theory, his early work (1967) still have a relevance to explain the massification of

Korean churches.132 Berger notes that secularization leads to a pluralistic situation133 which brings

about a demonopolization of religious traditions. “As a result, religious tradition, which previously

could be authoritatively imposed, now has to be marketed. It must be ‘sold’ to a clientele that is no

longer constrained to ‘buy’” (138). In such a market situation, religious institutions become

producers and sellers of commodities, and believers become consumers who can freely choose

participation or non-participation in religious activity. That is to say, the pluralistic situation

relativizes religious contents, which in turn are deprived of their status as taken-for-granted,

objective reality in consciousness. Now religious reality becomes a private affair of individuals. And,

therefore, in order to bring the religious consumers into the church, churches are trying to sell the

products that can satisfy the consumer preference. Then the growth of churches and the concomitant

proliferation of mega-churches can be explained by the successful catering of religious needs of

certain religious clients or potential religious clients. For sure, customized programs coupled with the

organizational hierarchy134 and the use of multi-media technology in mega-churches would be the

factors pulling people into bigger churches, and the failure to offer such services would be the factors

pushing them out of relatively small churches.135 When considering that the Korean mega-churches

are highly rationalized, it looks very persuasive to see the success of Korean mega-churches as the

result of the development of effective modern institutions by embracing modern values and

structures, as suggested by Hong (2003, 242). And we can also be sympathetic to the same author’s

cautious prediction that “there may come a point when Korean mega-churches may lose their vitality

through having rationalized systems with no spiritual life in them” (ibid, 253).136

132

Some Korean scholars link secularization with the growth of Korean churches and the proliferation of mega-

churches rather than seeing them as desecularization or re-enchantment. See Hong (2003) and Chong (2006). 133

When most western scholars including Berger talk about the pluralistic situation of religion, they usually mean the

situation in which different Christian denominations and sects coexist and compete each other. But in Korea it means the

situation characterized by the coexistence of various religions including Buddhism, , Protestantism, Catholic, One-

Buddhism, Chondogyo, and Islam (Chong 2006, 216). 134

Most mega churches employ a staff of ministers who manage the various ministries, programs and businesses of the

church. 135

A renowned sociologist of religion, Mark Chaves (2006) observed that in every denomination, people are

increasingly concentrated in the very largest churches in the U.S., and gave an explanation as follows; “rising costs since

the 1970s have made life increasingly difficult for smaller churches, and these difficulties have helped to push people

into very large churches” (329). Chaves’s explanation has relevance to the example of Korean churches. 136

In this regard, I am also sympathetic to a study arguing in the context of Black mega church in the U.S.A. that the

mega church lost the perspective of empowerment on which the church was supposed to be built on by providing

services to church members and the community at large, and its characteristics rather created barriers to establishing

82

Let us put down the impulse to judge hastily whether these mega churches are maintaining

their religious energy or not. My concern rather lies in the fact that newly emerging small churches

are challenging to the traditional church model based on the theology of church growth. They view

the proliferation of mega churches as being rife with the capitalist economic logic by which the

growth of church size is simply identified with the success of the church. They also have an abiding

dissatisfaction with the churches’ movement toward the consumerism. In the religio-social context

characterized by the unhappy marriage between the religion and modern capitalist consumerism, the

building of small community is heralded as a critical movement toward the recovery of Christian

hope.137

The Power of Basic Sociality

In the emergence of small churches in the metropolitan city, I find new forms of religious life imbued

with modern people’s religious energy, which make our attention turn to Maffesoli’s conception of

sociality. In his book, Le Temps des tribus, Maffesoli argues for the power of the basic sociality, i.e.

the puissance of ‘the being together,’ as opposed to the institutions of ‘power’ (pouvoir). What

fascinates him is the role of puissance which is continually at work in forming small groups in

contemporary era. Where the individualization has been more of common sense in mass society,

Mafessoli rather detects the decline of individualism evidently attested by the existence of new tribes

who get along so as to maintain the solidarity of tribus (Maffesoli, 1988). He is observing the

underlying processes and social configuration in which all the various manifestations of the ‘being-

together’ are created beyond individualism. He succinctly notes;

My hypothesis, as distinct from those who lament the end of great collective values

and the withdrawal into the self – which they falsely parallel with the growing

importance of everyday life – is that a new (and evolving) trend can be found in the

growth of small groups and existential networks. This represents a sort of tribalism

which is based at the same time on the spirit of religion (re-ligare) and on localism

(proxemics, nature) (40).

It seems natural for Maffesoli to observe the existence of religious energy “in the various

manifestation of sociality” (32). The existence of the urban small churches evidences the

development of social forms of today, in Maffesoli’s words, “consisting of a patchwork of small local

entities. Where there is the “fascination with power” that is transformed into religion, “religion

binds; it binds precisely because of the close co-existence’, because of physical proximity. Thus,

contrary to historical ‘ex-tension’, which is built upon vast and increasingly impersonal structures,

nature favours ‘in-tension’ (in-tendere), with all the commitment, enthusiasm and warmth that it

supposes” (35).

community within and without the church. 137

The leaders of small churches hesitate to call themselves as ‘emerging church’ which is an American-born

phenomenon, but I want to agree with Bielo (2009) who evaluates America’ emerging church as “a movement of cultural

critique, self-consciously reacting to the historic coupling of Christianity and modernity” (219). As a matter of fact, the

small churches with which I have a concern here have common traits with American emerging churches such as the

responsiveness to cultural change and the rejection of traditional organizational settings.

83

Location of Small Communities

First of all, let us ask; where are new tribes, to use Meffesoli’s metaphor, to be found in the secular

metropolitan city? Where are they located? As suggested by Knott (2005), “churches and other

places of worship, as symbolic places, are one means by which religious ideas about the divine, the

human community, and the ritual process of producing sacred space are given a material presence”

(162). And further, churches are crucial sites for constructing of religious identities of urban

believers, in which they characterize their way of believing, identify themselves as religious and

make normative claims about their religious life. The places of small urban churches are interestingly

manifesting a new way of being church in the metropolitan Seoul.

Eight Young adults, who lived in Ansan city, and four young pastors established the

church renovating the fourth floor of the building which had been a bar nearby

Hongik University. Other floors are still bars and clubs. As you know well, the area

nearby Hongik University is known for the center of young culture. We knew no one,

and mostly young people live in this area. The rent was too high. But we started the

church in the area where bars and clubs were clustered together. We made a church

like a live café for non-Christian to feel free to come in. Before that, we’ve rent a

small performing hall to hold a worship service every Sunday, and now we are

holding a worship service in the church we own (pastor of BL church). (translated

from Korean)

About three months later after starting the church, we were allowed to use without

rent fee an Italian restaurant that has not opened on Sunday….We decided to

maintain the atmosphere of the restaurant during the worship service. The church

with restaurant-atmosphere made new-comers feel cozy, and rendered church

members have warmer and more personal fellowship and worship service (pastor of

WL church). (translated from Korean)

BCC church, comprised of 30 members, started the church renting the fifth floor of a building in

Seoul Women’s University in September 2011, and now is holding a worship service renting a cafe

located in Daehakro(‘college road’). DC church is using a public building, Literature House in Seoul,

located in Namsan, in which there is only an exterior sign of ‘Munhwasotong gonggamteo’(cultural

communication center) without any sign of church.

Although these small churches are located in various places within the secular city, they

have in common that most of them do not own the church building. They are not trying to build their

own place in the city, but rather to locate themselves among the city; in apparently non-religious or

secular places such as restaurant, café, school auditorium, theater, community center, etc. For them,

anywhere spiritual activities take place is sacred space. Indeed, “religion is located in the very fabric

of the secular” (Knott 2005, 153).138 Modern urban spaces are not entirely secular, but rather could

138

This observation leads to question the primacy of place in studying religion in contemporary society. The exclusive

84

be, though fragmented, sacred spaces marked by religious activities.

Reacting to Challenging Cultural Situation

Placing themselves among the city, the leaders of small churches are sensitively reacting to the

changing cultural situation. Actually, it is quite normal for them to use the narrative of ‘changing

world.’ They feel that the cultural context of ministry and therefore ministry itself are facing a

dramatic challenge in our days. For instance, the appropriation of postmodernism discourse certainly

offers insights into how they are adapting and transforming to complex social realities.

Korean society where we are presently living is undergoing more rapid change

compared to any other period. And it is the postmodern soil on which people with

various backgrounds and various thoughts are living (pastor of WL church).

(translated from Korean)

What does this postmodern condition mean for church? What is the meaning of being church in this

habitat of various people with various backgrounds and various thoughts? These are the questions

raised by some leaders of the small churches who had much experience in the mega-church. Thus, it

is quite understandable that the narratives of changing cultural situation are followed by the critique

of traditional church model which only focuses on the quantitative growth. Pointing out that Korea

has undergone the cultural conflict between generations created by the technological development,

Pastor of BL Church raises a following question; “the Korean churches have achieved the

tremendous quantitative growth in such a short period like the miracle of Han River. However, can

the current church model be welcomed when the current SNS (Social Network Service) generation

becomes the older generation?” Pastor of DC Church also makes a similar comment about the

contemporary cultural situation.

Currently, the Korean churches are put in the situation in which the Korean society

is standing on the one with world-best Internet accessibility and IT(Information

Technology) powers. Furthermore, I would like to point out an appalling situation

that the use of social media which is characteristically participation-inducing and

strongly diffusible is increasing exponentially (pastor of DC church). (translated

from Korean)

For those who do not have their own building, the people’s use of tele-communication technology

concern with the place-bounded religion fails to properly understand the religious lives of modern people. Inquiry into

how religion is practiced requires the acute awareness to the context in which religion happens. Recently, among religion

scholars, there is an increase of the concern with modern religious lives unbounded within church-centered religion. Cf.

Bender (2003), Ammerman (2007) and Kong(2010). It would be conducible to quote Kong’s suggestion; “…in order to

understand the place of religion in the contemporary world it is necessary to examine not just the overtly religious places,

but also other spaces of everyday life that may occasionally take on religious functions and meanings….or be infused and

shaped by religious values but which are neither overtly nor primarily about religion.

85

opens up the space of opportunity to go beyond the materiality of place. Actually, they are holding up

the significance of the Internet as a valued medium in the contemporary society. In this regard, pastor

of WL Church says that in order to overcome the physical and temporal constraints;

We are sharing the church announcements and news through Facebook or Twitter

with which many people are familiar, and are sometimes having a real-time online

prayer meeting through Kakao Talk. And we are using the application for online

conference such as ‘webex’ for the small group leader training and staff

meeting….The church of God cannot be locked inside a building. …So, though we

don’t have a church building, we believe that anywhere members of WL church go

is the church. We call this CWOL (Church Without Walls). (translated from Korean)

The members of these small churches can reinforce the feeling of belonging by the use of developed

technology which gives rise to the interactivity. 139

In their narrative of changing cultural situation, it becomes clear that they recognize that to

live in this cultural condition means to realize different things to different people, so to speak,

different people experience religion differently in the contemporary cultural condition. These small

churches are very responsive to the changing situation, and do not presume that people think in the

same way or should think in the same way. For them, nevertheless, the rapidly changing culture is

not the condition that shaken the foundation of religious truth, but something that they have to and

want to embrace. Therefore, they believe that church needs to change since people are living

different lives.

What is remarkable here is that such cultural sensitivity leads them to emphasize the

necessity of creative adaptation to the rapidly changing cultural situation. Indeed, in the

conversations with the leaders of small churches, the creativity of ministry is the very theme that

recurrently emerges. They emphasize the creativity of church ministry, pursuing the variety of

missions and at the same time resisting the formalization. In the case of BL Church,

In the worship service held in the performing hall, various performances are put on

the stage with dazzling lighting effect. The pastor is delivering a sermon dressed in a

casual style, and members are having an intimate fellowship in small groups among

the free atmosphere without excluding anyone (translated from Korean).

And pastor of BCC Church, who allegedly finds his ministerial discourses in such words as

‘mission,’ ‘city,’ ‘culture and arts,’ and ‘spirituality,’ emphasizes the significance of artistic,

participatory worship service.

139

The small churches’ use of SNS can be contrasted to the mega churches’ use of multi-media such as TV broadcasting.

SNS is a means enabling more intimate and close relationships between members.

86

Our community is holding worship service with various special themes on every

Sunday. The worship service with the painting on the first Sunday, the worship

service with the music on the second Sunday, the worship service with the drama on

the third Sunday, and the worship service with the poem on the fourth Sunday.

Every worship service has a special theme following the subject which is

determined on the monthly basis. (translated from Korean)

The contemporary style of ritual would not entirely define their religious identity, but there seems to

be the close connection between their unique style of worship service and their religious identity.

And, sometimes, the cultural sensitivity becomes attached to preacher’s distinctive style of dress,

appearance. The pastor wearing blue jean pants and casual shirt and giving a sermon is the symbol of

resistance to the formality which has defined the traditional identity of minister, and the expression

of anti-authoritative attitude. Indeed, the contemporary style of ritual and the preacher’s anti-formal

style of appearance evidence the manifestation of a unique way of being church in the contemporary

society.

For the Community

Small churches often characterize themselves against the dominant tradition. They have nothing to

do with any kind of dogmatism or institutional formula. They have no interest in belonging to any

established denomination and do not even try to establish a denominational heritage. In their anti-

institutional attitude,140 I read their resistance to authoritative church structure. In this case, the anti-

institutional character does not necessarily lead to what Robert Bellah and his colleagues called

‘Sheila-ism’ which refers to a purely personal form of religion (Bellah, et.al.1985). Rather, the

constituents of small churches construct the enduring networks connecting them in the urban world.

Among them, I find the deinstitutionalized expression of religious faith.

In forming an intimate relationship in small community, a notable emphasis is put on the

formation of community based on the horizontal leadership, which is an expression of resistance to

the organizational hierarchy. For them, church members are not the consumers of religious services,

and the pastor is not like a CEO or a chairman of a large business who manages many ministries

simultaneously. The role of pastor is re-identified in stressing upon the participation of all members

in the community. The pastor is not the only one who is in charge in these churches. Indeed, they

grasp a vision of community operated by the horizontal leadership. In a church reported by Chong

(2011), “these are able to form intimate face-to-face relationships since the size of the church is

small….unlike the existing institutionalized church, the church leadership and authority are not

monopolized by a certain person, and all church members are expressing their opinions freely and

are taking part in the decision-making process.” Pastor of WL Church also emphasizes the

significance of horizontal leadership in the church.

140

An endeavor to resist the institutionalizing attempt is manifested in professing to be a movement, not just a church.

For example, the motto of WL Church, – “it’s not just a church, but the WIND (movement),” – shows its self-conscious

attempt to claim a distinctive identity and purpose provocatively; it wants to be more like a cultural movement than an

organization or an institution.

87

In WL Church, the representatives from each generation constitute the operation

committee, which is leading the church. We select representatives from each

generation in proportion to the number of each generation; a representative of 20s,

female and male representative of 30s, and a representative of 40s and more. These

representatives take the responsibility of close communication between generations,

and decide the crucial matters of the church.(translated from Korean)

In these communities of equals, charisma does not belong to a certain figure, one divine leader.

Rather, there may be the plurality of charismatic leaders. Though not bound in any form of centrality,

they are able to form the community connecting them in the contemporary urban world. In and

through such small groups, indeed, religion is practiced by urban dwellers.

Finally, let us remind of the mythical power of basic sociality that Maffesoli taught us.

The small group…tends to restore, structurally, the symbolic power. Step by step,

one can see a mystical network being built, carefully yet solidly connected, leading

one to speak of a cultural resurgence in social life. This the lesson taught by these

eras of the masses – eras based mainly on the concatenation of groups with

splintered but exacting intentionalities. I propose calling this the re-enchantment

with the world (83).

We are witnessing the rise of small religious groups in the modern city Seoul. Certainly, it cannot be

said that this is the dominant form of religious life in Korea. And nobody will know if this form of

religious life will prevail or not in the future. And at the moment, it is not important to evaluate

whether the emergence of small group is re-enchantment because it is not arguably possible to talk

about the disenchantment in Korea in the first place. What is important here is the existence of small

group operating on the basis of proximity, both physical and virtually, in the metropolitan city. They

never hesitate to call themselves as ‘community’. For them, community is the very term that shows

their identity and purpose in the city.

Reference

Ammerman, Nancy T. (ed), 2007, Everyday Religion – Observing Modern Religious Lives, Oxford: Oxford

University Press.

Bellah, Robert N., 1970, Beyond Belief: Essays of Religion in a Post-Traditional World, New York: Harper

and Row.

Bellah, Robert N. et. al., 1985, Habits of Heart – Individualism and Commitment in American Life, Berkeley,

Los Angeles and London: University of California Press.

Bender, Courtney, 2003, Heaven’s Kitchen – Living Religion at God’s Love We Deliver, Chicago and London:

The University of Chicago Press.

Berger, Peter L. 1967, The Sacred Canopy, New York: Doubleday.

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, 1999, “The Desecularization of the World: A Global Overview,” in Peter L. Berger (ed), The

Desecularization of the World – Resurgent Religion and World Politics, Grand Rapids: William B.

Eerdmans Publishing Company, pp. 1-18.

Bielo, James S., 2009, “The ‘Emerging Church’ in America: Notes on the Interaction of Christianities,”

Religion, 39: 219-232.

Chaves, Mark, “All Creatures Great and Small: Megachurches in Context,” Review of Religious Research, 47,

4: 329-346.

Chong, Chae-yong, 2006, “Secularization and the Growth of Korean Churches,” in Yong-shin Park and Chae-

yong Chong (eds), Contemporary Korean Society and Christianity, Seoul: Handl, pp. 207-235

(written in Korean).

, 2011, “Canaan Saints, Who are They?” Christianity Today Korea, Dec 26. (written in

Korean)

Cox, Harvey, 1995, Fire From Heaven – The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping of Religion in

the Twenty-first Century, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.

Knott, Kim, 2005, “Spatial Theory and Method for the Study of Religion,” Temenos, 41(2): 153-184.

Kong, Lily, 2010, “Global Shifts, Theoretical Shifts: Changing Geographies of Religion,” Progress in Human

Geography, 34(6): 755-776.

Maffesoli, Michel, 1988, Le Temps des tribus, Paris: Méridiens Klincksieck.

Nishioka, Rodger, 2002, “Life in the Liquid Church: Ministry in a Consumer Culture,” Journal for Preachers,

26(1): 31-36.

Hong, Young-Gi, 2003, “Encounter with Modernity: The ‘McDonaldization’ and ‘Charismatization’ of Korean

Mega-Churches,” International Review of Mission, 92: 239-255.

Simmel, Georg, 1997, Essays on Religion, edited and translated by Horst Jürgen Helle in collaboration with

Ludwig Nieder, New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

Speakes-Lewis, Amandia, LeRoi L. Gill and Crystal George Moses, 2011, “The Move Toward American

Modernity: Empowerment and Individualism in the Black Mega Church,” Journal of African

American Studies, 15: 236-247.

Ha, Hongkyu is research fellow of Institute for Social Development Studies, Yonsei University. He received his PhD

from Boston University. His dissertation was based on the philosophy of Post-Wittgenstein. His research interests are

social theory, sociology of religion, sociology of culture and sociology of mind.

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Notes from an MT:

Women's aspirations at a South Korean advertising agency

Fedorenko, Olga

New York University

1. Introduction: Cool soju as a challenge to patriarchy

Early in my fieldwork on advertising in contemporary South Korea, I was following a controversy

around advertising for Cool soju. At the time, in the fall 2009, soju advertising was blatantly sexist: It

usually featured young female entertainers, scantly clad, in submissive poses, with a phallic bottle

somewhere in the frame. The “Cool” campaign generally followed these conventions, casting singer

Uee, drinking with friends and performing a “cool shot dance,” consisting of energetic squats and

thrusts. Unlike other soju ads, the campaign caused a controversy because one of the episodes

showed Uee saying to her date, “I'm cool (nan k'ul' hae)... Am I really your first?”, a question that

left the guy scandalized and short of words, to which Uee laughed and said, “Think casual.” Many

netizens praised Uee's attractiveness and admired her dancing, but many were offended by what they

saw as an encouragement of promiscuity. Commentators noted that Uee looked “too easy” and that

her coolness about sexual matters was inappropriate for her young age and “innocent face.”

To me, this campaign stood out because when I first noticed it, I assumed that behind it would

be male producers, who perhaps themselves would enjoy a company of a casually thinking young

woman. Yet as I investigated the campaign, I learned that it was spearheaded by an advertising team

that included young, well-educated women, who saw the campaign as a challenge to patriarchal

norms. By asserting an aggressive female sexuality, they were expressing their aspirations for

women’s sexual freedom.

2. Aspirations and advertising work

This anecdote introduces the issue I engage with in this paper—aspirations and how they sneak in the

work of advertising producers in contemporary South Korea. I am specifically concerned with how

female advertising workers, like the women behind the “Cool” soju campaign, find ways to advance

their aspirations for female sexual agency. My goal is to explore women’s aspirations, to question

their emancipatory potential and also to tease out the relation between women’s aspirations and their

empowerment. My data comes from participant observation I conducted at a major advertising

agency in Seoul in the winter 2009-2010 and from interviews with advertising workers.

When evoking aspirations, I follow Arjun Appadurai’s conceptualization of aspirations as “a

cultural capacity” (Appadurai 2004; Bunnel and Goh 2012). For Appadurai, to engage with

aspirations is to talk about cultural forces while “brining the future back in” and allowing for an

emancipatory action. Circulating within a social milieu, aspirations shape horizons of what is

possible, they inspire and motivate. Importantly, aspirations are collective rather than individual, and,

therefore, aspirations have implications not only for the horizons of individual achievement, but for

social change. With my examples from advertising work, I’d like to put pressure on the concept of

aspirations, to question whether aspirations are necessarily emancipatory; who gets to formulate

aspirations and under what circumstances and whose interests are thus served.141

141 While Appadurai acknowledges that the oppressed are often complicit with and in fact reproduce the structures that

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An advertising agency is a rich site to take up the problem of aspirations. Most immediately,

advertising, as a persuasive public discourse, works on aspirations. It suggests ways of being and

directions for becoming, it shapes people’s desires and horizons of possibility. True, advertising

attempts to channel aspirations into a specific route—consumption, yet that it tries does not mean it

succeeds. Advertising speaks about a variety of everyday topics, from behavioral norms to sexuality,

as the Cool campaign exemplified. As I argue in my dissertation, when contemporary advertising

strives to win the consumer’s attention amidst the media clutter, it often ends up entertaining at least

as much as it is selling and, for most practical purposes, blends with other popular-cultural products.

In South Korea specifically, the cultural logic of advertising often drives it to take up broadly

resonant topics and even to attempt social interventions.

Moreover, an advertising agency is a productive site to engage with aspirations because

advertising is inevitably informed by aspirations of people who produce it: for creative expression,

for professional recognition, for a social impact, for a voyeuristic pleasure—in fact, very rarely for

enhancing the profits of advertisers, as came out in my interviews. Outsiders might envision

advertising makers as skimming manipulators, yet from what I observed, especially for the low- to

medium-ranking advertising employees, they more readily identified with consumers than with

advertisers. As cultural producers, advertising makers articulate collective aspirations of the groups

they root for. Many of them aspired to use their position to correct social wrongs and to benefit the

underprivileged, to speak for the interests of stressed office workers or overextended working

moms—it was such campaigns that they would bring up as examples of good, meaningful

advertising they were proud of and strove to produce. Such aspirations, of course, had to be

negotiated with one’s peers, bosses, clients, censorship boards and the broader public. Yet, as the

Cool vignette illustrated and as I had many chances to observe during my fieldwork, those personal

aspirations did find their way into the ads.

In this paper, I focus on professional women working in the advertising industry. The habitual

exploitation of female sexuality by advertising—the “sex sells” dictum, which is prevalent in South

Korea as elsewhere—creates peculiar challenges and opportunities for how they pursue their diverse

aspirations, particularly aspirations that involve sexuality as it is lived by individuals or as it is

engaged in society. Through their experiences and aspirations, I attempt to get a glimpse at the

“capacity to aspire” of the relatively new demographic group—South Korean career women.

Building on the seminal volume Under construction (Kendall 2002), I thus seek to grasp the

historical experiences of contemporary Korean women and to contribute to feminist critique.

3. Women's aspirations

Female sexuality, while readily exploited in modern advertising since its advent in Korea in the late

1960s142, was denied in reality, control of women's sexuality being at the core of maintaining a

patriarchal order. Historically, women’s aspirations were repressed and channeled to the reproductive

needs of the patriarchal society, women’s desires directed towards the success of their men, sons or

husbands, through patriarchal ideologies and also through what Silvia Federici (2004) described (in a

oppress them, he generally presents aspirations as inherently liberatory, by virtue of being formulated by the

marginalized to improve their own lot. His examples of the urban poor in Mumbai tell a success story of the oppressed

building alliances, expanding their “map of aspirations” and achieving improvements in their immediate lives.

142 The first known advertisement in Korea dates back to 1886, but the South Korean advertising industry truly picked

up during the 1960s, as South Korea embarked on the aggressive program of the economic development and as

commercial television and radio took off (Shin and Shin 2004).

91

different geographical context) as “wage slavery.” Cho Haejoang traces this condition into the late

1990s, arguing that “the celebrated story of south Korea's miraculous economic transformation” was

accompanied by “a story about regressive changes in the roles and images of women in late

twentieth-century south Korean society (2002: 165).

Under the patriarchal hegemony, women's sexual aspirations were denied and limited with

ideological, social and structural mechanisms. The historical understanding was that men had strong

sexual urges, whereas women were imagined as chaste and having little sexual desire (Chang 2003:

53). From the 1980s, these double standards have been challenged implicitly by the advancements of

consumer culture and consequent sensualization of commodities, on the one hand, and, on the other,

explicitly by women’s movement in Korea, women refusing to be mere sexual objects and asserting

themselves as sexual subjects (Shim 2002: 142; Cho 2005).

To consider women’s movement first, as Cho Joo-hyun (2005) argues, in the early 1990s,

South Korean women's sexual politics were based on the identity of “pure heterosexual women

defenselessly suffering male violence”(89), but after the 1997 IMF crisis they incorporated new

discourses which asserted women’s sexual agency and encouraged women to seek opportunities "to

construct a female subjectivity that pursues fun and pleasure” (98). Kim Hyun Mee (2007) traces the

decisive moment when Korean women publicly asserted themselves as sexual subjects to the 2002

Soccer World Cup, co-hosted by South Korea. During the event, female fans, who, according to Kim,

accounted to between one half to two thirds of the spectators,

"transformed the soccer games into a space where they could project their ‘sexual desires’ . . .

[W]omen in stadiums, on the streets, and in front of the TV screens enjoyed imaginary and

direct ‘heterosexual’ romance with the male soccer players” (539)

As Kim interprets it,

"The fervour of these women over this World Cup series in Korea was ... a new collective

experience of pleasure by women as viewers of men’s bodies and not as objects of men’s

gaze” (540)

The opportunities for women to consume sexualized images of attractive male athletes and

entertainers remained abundant, offering visual, voyeuristic pleasures to assert and satisfy liberated

women's sexuality (Chang 2003; Cho 2005; . Joo 2012).

While Kim and other commentators interpret this emergence of women as enthusiastic

consumers of sexualized images primarily as an expression of women’s emancipation, it is also a

testimony to the hegemony of consumer culture. The consolidation of consumerism in South Korea

followed the scenario described by Marxist critic WF Haug (1986): As the number of available

commodities grew, their appearance, or “commodity aesthetics,” became increasingly sensualized, so

that their attractiveness is enhanced by appeals to human senses. The effect of such a sensualization

and sexualization of commodities, Haug argues, is that human sensuality is incessantly stimulated,

people eventually becoming dominated by their own senses, their sexuality, in the long run, being

remolded to fit capital’s valorization needs.143 As consumers, both women and men are invited to

gaze at and buy sensualized commodities.

Human sexuality being transfered to commodities, voyeurism becomes a privileged path for

sexual satisfaction, Haug explains:

143 As Haug explains, "Here it is not the sexual object which takes on the commodity form, but the tendency of all

objects of use in commodity-form to assume a sexual from to some extent. That is, the sensual need and the means by

which it is satisfied are rendered non-specific. In a certain way, they come to resemble money ..." (55).

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"In a situation of general sexual repression, or at least of isolation, ... the use-value of mere

sexual illusion lies in the satisfaction which voyeurism can provide. ... The characteristic of

this satisfaction through sexual illusion is that it simultaneously reproduces further demand

alongside satisfaction, and produces a compulsive fixation. If guilt feeling and the angst they

arouse block the way to the sexual object, then the commodity of sexual illusion acts as its

replacement, mediating excitement and a certain satisfaction which might be difficult to

develop in actual sensual and physical contact. ... Thus a general voyeurism is reinforced,

habituated, and determines the human instinctual structure.” (55)144

Indeed, writing about the World Cup fans, Kim stresses that for liberated women's sexuality, to be

publicly acceptable, it had to be directed into “safe” voyeuristic channels, such as worship of Korean

athletes.145 Despite the advancement of Korean feminism and relative liberalization of social mores,

women who display their aggressive sexuality provoke social criticism—just like Uee did in her

Cool soju commercial. I agree with Kim that the voyeurism of liberated women's sexual aspirations

is a testimony to “the contradictions between young women’s newly emerging desires and their

structural positioning" (540). But I also stress, with Haug, that voyeurism is a tendency of late

capitalism in general, which exploits human capacities as affective, sensuous beings for valorization

goals and is thus far from being emancipatory. In other words, I suggest that female aspirations for

sexual agency in Korea are caught between circuits of capital and the lingering patriarchal mores.

4. Women in the advertising industry

At an advertising agency, women get to negotiate their professional and sexual aspirations both as

cultural producers and cultural consumers. As consumers, they, like other women, consume images

advertising circulates, appropriating them to inform their aspirations or to obtain voyeuristic

pleasures from gazing at attractive models. Unlike most women, however, women at the advertising

agency also get to be producers of such images; they have their input in the kind of images

advertising circulates and thus advance their aspirations, often in hope to effect social change and

shape overall social milieu within which aspirations form. The Cool campaign illustrated this

dynamic.

Women are well represented in the advertising industry, especially in junior positions. My

impression was that about half of “creatives” were female. According to both female and male

employees, in the advertising world gender is relatively unimportant, as long as one could impress

his or her coworkers and superiors with original ideas. There are still few women in senior

managerial positions, the trend that was repeatedly explained to me by the newness of gender

equality consciousness in South Korea and the insufficient time women had for moving through the

ranks.While an intern at the advertising agency, I spent some time with female creatives and had

repeated conversations with them about work and life. Those women were the “younger sisters”

144 Bauman (2008) makes a similar argument.

145 "It is indeed difficult for women of Korea in their teens and 20s who have been defined as ‘asexual beings’ despite

their physical growth, and having been under constant surveillance, to realize their heterosexual desires naturally, in

everyday life. To these women, showing their enthusiasm for male stars is a ‘safe’ way to express their socially oppressed

desires. It is an ‘exciting’ experience for young women to project their burgeoning sexual fantasies on male objects"

(543). Kim notes that patriotism served as a shield for women to express their sexual desires and fantasies, "These

women did not have to worry about how their enthusiasm might be viewed by the men of their country, or by strict

feminists. No one was going to blame them as being vulgar or foolish for screaming, shouting out that the soccer players

were ‘hot’, or that they ‘loved them’. The women who had been constantly forced into feelings of moral inferiority for

admiring and idolizing stars, were accepted by society in their union with symbols of ‘patriotism’" (546).

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generation to the daughter’s generation Cho Haejoang talked about in the essay where she argued

that the three generations of middle-class Korean women refused to live like their mothers. Born in

the 1970s, “younger sisters” were “the children of absolute consumer society" (170). By the time of

my fieldwork, over a decade after Cho’s analysis, they were educated, ambitious and successful—

arguably the first generation of Korean women to make professional careers in numbers. Many of

them had young children and were balancing demanding careers with family care, in the face of still

lacking institutional supports.

During my research, I tried to solicit a critique of sexualized portrayals of women in

advertising from women in the advertising industry, and I was puzzled to repeatedly encounter

women defending the advertising strategy of sex appeal. As Cho Youmi, a managing director of Leo

Burnett Korea and one of the highest ranking women in the Korean advertising world, put it,

"sexuality is a natural thing, if it is consensual, what’s the big deal?" She strongly endorsed sex

appeal strategies in general, but pointed out that it was problematic that only women appeared in

sexualized ads. Her example was soju advertising that showed only female models—she herself

would prefer to drink in a company of a young attractive man and wished that advertisers

acknowledged that, she said.

The aspirations of women creatives —and, in the light of c Mee’s argument, of young Korean

women in general—for voyeuristic consumption of sexualized male bodies came off dramatically

during a lunch conversation with female creatives from one of major agencies. Three of us met at a

food court near the agency building, and the conversation meandered between everyday topics, until

I brought up their agency's recent campaign that was provoking online criticisms for its vulgarity and

even drew attention of the advertising review board. The campaign was for an energy drink, which

was advertised by showing a skirt zipper getting slowly undone on a woman's naked thigh as the

drink can was getting open.

My hope for an organic feminist critique of the advertising practices was crashed again, when

the women said that they actually liked the campaign, and it was the conservatives in Korean society

who were complaining about it. As one of them explained, they envisioned a parallel advertisement

of a shirt getting unbuttoned on an attractive man, which would balance the message. However, the

male creative director in charge of the campaign killed that idea as "boring," to their disappointment.

It might be boring for a man, but for a woman it would be fun to watch, the other commented.

Both with Cho Youmi’s soju example and with the energy drink campaign, women saw

discrimination not in that women were objectified for a male gaze but rather that the advertising

industry did not cater to the desirous, objectifying female gaze as well. Their aspiration was to

expand the regime of objectification to men, to make them objects of voyeuristic pleasure. It is

important to note that despite their eager embrace of the “sex sell” strategy, women also

demonstrated irony and cynical distance towards the sexist norms that permeated work in advertising.

The energy drink conversation, for example, ended with jokes about the same male creative director

who invited one of them to help him pick a model for another commercial, but picked the woman

who was his “style” and even changed the shooting schedule for her, never bothering to ask for the

input from my acquaintance, who felt that she wasted half of the day watching her boss flirt with

auditioning models.

While generally denying gender discriminatory practices at the agency, women often

complained about the difficulties of combining family and career. To convey professional demeanor,

women downplayed the fact that they had families. As one of them said, if a man had a picture of his

child in his cubicle, he was "family-oriented" (kajŏngjŏk ida), a positive characteristic, but if a

woman displayed a picture of her child, people said "she thinks only about home," meaning she was

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unprofessional.146 Though when I connected the workplace micro-practices that limit women’s

career opportunities with “sex appeal” advertising reproducing a particular vision of women and

their role in society, they would disagree and recite the usual “sex sells” wisdom. A true equality of

career opportunities was not on their “map of aspirations,” reflecting the lasting gender ideologies in

Korea, whereas they were proactive in asserting a female sexual subjectivity, both as cultural

producers and empowered consumers.

5. Notes from an MT: corporate "Abracadabra"

In the last section of my paper, I consider a corporate MT, or “membership training,” as a site where

women’s aspirations and their implications play out. MT, or “membership training,” is a practice of

belongingness to a social group, from university classes to church congregations. Usually overnight

out-of-town trips, MTs are occasions for participants to eat, drink, play and bond―and to recognize

themselves as a part of the group. True to its name, this modern ritual trains participants―via

collective bodily practices, such as playful sports contests or drinking games―to submit to the

authority of the group and enact its explicit and implicit values. While a disciplinary technology,

MTs are also an affective social milieu punctuated with the moments of Durkheimian “collective

effervescence,” when intense emotions arise to create communal solidarity and override the usual

hierarchies, however momentarily. MT is an advantageous site to think about aspirations because it is

a space where shared cultural meanings are asserted and a single collective identity is produced,

implying a synchronization of individual aspirations with collective ones.147

As a part of my internship, I attended the advertising agency’s annual MT. The advertising MT

followed the usual MT scenario, blending in some elements of a corporate retreat flavored with

advertising specificities. On a Friday, about 150 participants departed in five buses from the office

during lunch time, to spend a night at a resort on the seaside a couple hours from Seoul. Upon arrival,

we were given white T-shirts with the company logo, and the MT took off with a lesson to learn the

dance sequence from Brown Eyed Girls’ popular music video "Abracadabra." The two hours of

corporate dancing were followed by a dinner at the resort's restaurant and a later celebratory banquet,

during which the CEO presented the results for the year, outlined future goals, rewarded some for

remarkable efforts. Congratulatory toasts were risen countless times, senior management circulated

among the tables proposing "bottom-up" shots. The event culminated in a choreographed

performance of the eight new hires, prepared with the help of the dance instructors who taught

“Abracadabra.” Drinking and partying continued in private rooms into the early morning, when the 8

am breakfast was followed by a sightseeing trip to nearby scenic island, though quite a few people

were pathetically hung over, sleeping quietly (or not) in the covered part of the ferry. We arrived at

Seoul around 3 p.m., and some went back to office to work, there was a deadline to be met by

Monday.

For my purposes, I would like to zoom in on the corporate group dance, “Abracadabra.” A top-

ranking song at the time, “Abracadabra” was controversial since it marked Brown Eyed Girl's

146 They also deplored that having a second child was as good as quitting, because after a second maternity leave the

woman was very unlikely to be ever promoted.

147 As Appadurai helpfully reminds us, “Ritual here should not be taken in its colloquial sense, as the meaningless

repetition of set patterns of action, but rather as a flexible formula of performances through which social effects are

produced and new states of feeling and connection are created, not just reflected or commemorated. This creative,

productive, generative quality of ritual is crucial to consensus building in popular movements and it is a quintessential

window into why culture matters for development” (2004: 81).

95

departure from "cute and innocent" image toward "sexy bad girls," which was reflected both in the

revenge plot of the music video and in the "saucy" dance itself. Wearing the uniform white T-shirts,

the MT participants formed about 20 uniform rows in the conference room. An instructor with two

helpers, a young man and two women, taught us the sequence from the music video, breaking it

down to individual movements, which we then repeated. The event was filmed by two cameras, one

of the images projected to the big screen behind the instructors on the stage. The participants in the

first rows enthusiastically thrust their bottoms and added artistic touches to the sexy dance, as

everyone could see on the big screens. In the first row was the CEO, an elderly man to retire in a year,

who eagerly, though not particularly skillfully, performed the "saucy" moves of the video. The

people in the back rows were less into the dance, some of them joining late and being unable to

follow the moves, some of them sneaking out to the resort lobby. Nevertheless, the majority of the

MT participants were there, repeating the choreographed sexy motions with greater or lesser

enthusiasm and concentration.

I pick at the “Abracadabra” exercise because at the time I didn’t know how to make sense of it.

It made me somewhat uncomfortable: As much as I liked my teammates and respected them

professionally, I did not want to do any sexy dances with them, neither to see them as sexual objects

nor to be seen as such by them. Yet none of the people I talked to―mostly my female

acquittances―expressed a similar sentiment. In fact, some were pleased to learn the fashionable

dance moves from professionals. Those few who were not participating said that they were bad

dancers or simply that they were so tired from the week of work that they rather sleep for two hours

before the dinner festivities. As far as I could tell, men and women participated equally and with

comparable zeal.

The corporate “Abracadabra” can be analyzed in different ways. It can be seen as a

disciplinary practice that trained the employees to harness their sexuality and channel it into

approved channels, thus allowing for subsumption of human sexuality into productive processes of

post-Fordist capitalism, a task particularly relevant for advertising work, which depends on

advertising workers investing their subjectivity into work in order to come up with creative ideas and

craft ways to enhance commodities’ sensual appeal. It can also be seen as an exercise of conjuring

“collective effervescence” and thus inculcating a group identity, collective dancing being one of the

standard ritualistic actions employed to achieve a psychological unity of participants. What I wish to

tease out is how it testified to the victory of women’s aspirations and to their defeat simultaneously.

On the surface, “Abracadabra” was a victory. Closer to an effervescent assembly than a

militaristic drill (typical of Korean corporate culture) 148, the corporate “Abracadabra” can be

interpreted as an acknowledgement that employees were human bodies and thus a sign of the

humanization of the workplace. By including women equally, the dance exercise honored the

principles of gender equality. If it was sexualizing corporate culture, it was doing so in a gender-

neutral way, so that women as well as men could voyeuristically “consume” colleagues as sexual

objects while showing off their own bodies as much as they wished to participate. “Abracadabra”

was thus very much in line with women's aspirations to satisfy their voyeuristic sexuality, which

used to be the prerogative of men, in corporate settings and otherwise.

Yet, I interpret the abracadabra exercise as also a defeat because it was gender-neural in sexual

objectification. Rather than interrupting patriarchal objectification of women and commodification of

their sexuality, it included men in such practices and normalized the regime of human objectification

in general. While seemingly humanizing the workplace, abracadabra was a self-objectification

exercise to mould everyone into a uniform sexiness; it encouraged participants to adopt a voyeuristic

148 See Janelli and Janelli 1993.

96

attitude and made their private sensuality a corporate resource.

6. Conclusion

To conclude, following their aspirations for sexual agency and for professional success, women in

the advertising industry embraced its sexist practices. They were eager to use “sex appeal” strategies

to optimize their professional success, but also, occasionally, subverting it to advance their

aspirations for greater women’s empowerment, as with the Cool soju example. Thus at some level,

women navigated towards a greater gender equality, yet, on another level, these aspirations drove

women into complicity with the late-capitalist regime of commodity aesthetics, which objectifies

people and exploits human sexuality.

My general point is that women’s sexual liberation in South Korea followed the common

trajectory of an emancipatory cause being co-opted into a consumption opportunity and a lifestyle

choice. While women won the freedom to consume sexualized images, they remained discriminated

in employment practices and particularly Korea’s workplace regulation made it difficult for women

to be both workers and mothers. Thus this was a story about how aspirations, while providing

energies for a social change, get co-opted. I would like to conclude with an invitation to think about

how aspirations are necessarily contradictory and how pursuing aspirations can unintentionally

contribute to the conditions of subordination.

References

Appadurai, Arjun. 2004. “The Capacity to Aspire: Culture and the Terms of Recognition.” Culture and Public

Action: 59–84.

Bauman, Zygmunt. 2000. Liquid modernity. Cambridge, UK; Malden, MA: Polity Press ; Blackwell.

Bunnell, Tim, and Daniel P.S. Goh. 2012. “Urban Aspirations and Asian Cosmopolitanisms.” Geoforum 43 (1)

(January): 1–3. doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2011.06.001.

Chang, Pilwha. 2003. “Cyberspace and Sexuality.” Korea Journal 43 (3): 35.

Cho, Haejoang. 2002. “Living with Conflicting Subjectivities: Mother, Motherly Wife, and Sexy Woman in

the Transition from Colonial-modern to Postmodern Korea.” In Under Construction: The Gendering of

Modernity, Class, and Consumption in the Republic of Korea, edited by Laurel Kendall, 165–196. University

of Hawaii.

Cho, Joo-hyun. 2005. “Intersectionality Revealed: Sexual Politics in post-IMF Korea.” Korea Journal 45 (3):

86.

Federici, Silvia. 2004. Caliban and the witch. New York; London: Autonomedia .

Fedorenko, Olga. 2012. “Tending to the ‘flower of Capitalism:’ Consuming, Producing and Censoring

Advertising in South Korea of the ’00s”. Toronto: University of Toronto, East Asian Studies.

Haug, Wolfgang Fritz. 1986. Critique of Commodity Aesthetics: Appearance, Sexuality, and Advertising in

Capitalist Society. Social and Political Theory from Polity Press. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Janelli, Roger L., and Dawnhee Yim Janelli. 1993. Making Capitalism: The Social and Cultural Construction

of a South Korean Conglomerate. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.

Joo, Rachael Miyung. 2012. Transnational Sport: Gender, Media, and Global Korea. Duke University Press.

Kendall, Laurel. 2002. Under Construction: The Gendering of Modernity, Class, and Consumption in the

Republic of Korea. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

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Kim, Hyun Mee. 2007. “Feminization of the 2002 World Cup and Women’s Fandom.” In The Inter-Asia

Cultural Studies Reader, edited by Kuan-Hsing Chen and Huat Chua Beng, 539–549. London: Routledge.

Nelson, Laura C. 2000. Measured Excess: Status, Gender, and Consumer Nationalism in South Korea. New

York: Columbia University Press.

Shim, Young-Hee. 2002. “Sexuality Policy in Korea in the 1990s: Changes and Factors.” Korea Journal 42

(2): 136.

Shin, In Sup, and Kie Hyuk Shin. 2004. Advertising in Korea. Seoul: Communication Books.

Olga Fedorenko is Assistant Professor/Faculty Fellow at the Department of East Asian Studies at New York University.

She received her PhD from the East Asian Studies Department at the University of Toronto in November 2012. Her

dissertation, entitled “Tending to the ‘Flower of Capitalism:’ Consuming, Producing and Censoring Advertising in South

Korea of the 00′s,” takes an anthropological approach to advertising-related practices in contemporary South Korea. Her

research interests include anthropology of media; media publics and politics of old and new media; popular culture;

Korean Studies.

98

Collective Prayer and the Authoritative Word Harkness, Nicholas

Harvard University

When I conducted field research in 2008 in Seoul on the role of the human voice in Korean

Protestant Christianity, I had many conversations with Korean interlocutors about a sound I heard in

Korean speech. I eventually called this sound the Fricative Voice Gesture.149 It is the sound that one

hears after someone takes a sip of soju. This same sound can be superimposed over certain words as

a form of emphasis. When I asked people some basic questions about this sound—who made it, in

what contexts, when speaking with whom, etc.—they often gave normative accounts of speakers of

this sound. They said that it was usually made by older men (and sometimes older women),

especially if these men were drinking. Of course, I heard this sound produced by many more

speakers and in many more contexts than those listed above, but it was quite telling how my

interlocutors stereotyped the relationship between the sound and its producers. Furthermore, it was

telling that these native speakers often gave me instructions on where in Seoul I could go to hear this

sound. They characterized these places as the prototypical sites in which the stereotypical speakers

could be found. They mentioned T’apkol Park, where older men congregate, a sulchip or bar, where

they drink, as well as Seoul’s large markets—namdaemun or tongdaemun sijang—where the narrow

pathways are bustling with full-throated, working-class vendors. And they often mentioned loud and

raucous churches, especially Yoido Full Gospel Church and its founder and former head Pastor

David Yonggi Cho.

My paper today focuses on a similar kind of culturally stipulated relationship between voice,

personhood, and place in Seoul. Specifically, I look at preaching and prayer at the Yoido Full Gospel

Church. The sermon is a religious speech genre explicitly designed and delivered as an authorizing

discourse for religious practice. My paper today argues that the sermon does so not only

denotationally (via the words spoken about religious practice), but also performatively (via entailing

indexicality and textual poetics), specifically in the way in which sacred speech is modeled for a

congregation. I argue that a model for the holy vocal sounds of personal prayer is embedded in David

Yonggi Cho’s delivery of scripture. In a classic essay, Mikhail Bakhtin pointed out that the

“authoritative word” speaks through or “ventriloquates” speakers in the form of “’the voice of life

itself,’ ‘the voice of nature,’ ‘the voice of the people,’ ‘the voice of God,’ and so forth.”150 My

analysis shows that the “authoritative word” expressed in prayer is linked to the “sound shapes”

locatable in David Yonggi Cho’s sermons. To conclude, I consider the way that this ritual site in

which communion through specific kinds of sounds ritually links congregants together in a

“chronotope” or timespace envelope of Korean ethnonational advancement and urbanization.151

By way of comparison

To begin to explore the way the “authoritative Word” appears to operate in ritual communion through

sound, let us begin with two Korean recitations of the same bible verse, Romans 12:2,

149 See Harkness 2011, 2013. 150

Bakhtin 1986:163. 151

See Bakhtin 1981 on the chronotope.

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“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind

[maŭm], that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

“너희는 이 세대를 본받지 말고 오직 마음을 새롭게 함으로 변화를 받아 하나님의

선하시고 기뻐하시고 온전하신 뜻이 무엇인지 분별하도록 하라.”

The first recording is of is David Yonggi Cho from the Yoido Full Gospel Church. The second is of

Kim Chich’ŏl from Somang Presbyterian Church. I hope you will notice, immediately, that these are

very different ways of interacting with scripture. Of course, there are quite vast denominational,

theological, and class differences between these two churches. I hope to convince you that these

ways of interacting with scripture also have a particularly powerful ritual function, which figures into

a broader liturgical framework for accessing the “authoritative word.” That is, we are not just dealing

with mere differences in denominational style. Certainly, the Yoido Full Gospel Church is high-

energy, enthusiastic, and even ecstatic, like many of its Pentecostal counterparts around the world.

And Somang Church is reserved, solemn, and quiet, reflecting the restraint and liturgical

conservatism of upper-class Presbyterianism. Beyond style, in the general sense of the word,

congregants draw on their different semiotic ideologies of “the Word” to participate in verbalized

interaction with one another and with deity.152

Ritual speech becomes a model for holy speech and a semiotic anchor for religious practice

more generally. As a means of entering into my analysis, let me begin by introducing historically and

ethnographically this institutional site in which aspiration, religion, and urbanization intersect.

Christian Aspiration

In September of 2009 I stayed for two weeks in an apartment in Seoul owned by a mid-level pastor

at the Yoido Full Gospel Church. The apartment actually was the pastor’s earlier residence; the

family now lives in a newer, larger apartment nearby provided by the church. The older apartment is

located on the top floor of a five-floor apartment building, which the pastor owns. These days, the

family uses the older apartment mostly for storage.

I noticed that the apartment contained multiples of nearly everything of which one would

normally need fewer: four televisions, three refrigerators, two microwaves, and so on. The pastor’s

wife (honorific: samonim), told me that they were gifts from God, sent by the Holy Spirit. She and

her husband received food from the congregants at nearly every church service. Indeed, the three

refrigerators were fully stocked.

One evening, after she had sliced a few apples and pears for us to share, she explained to me that

Korean Christians were worried about America. She said that America used to be the source for

Christian values—after all, it was North American Christians who sacrificed their lives to bring the

Gospel to Korea. According to samonim, the Holy Spirit led these missionaries to Korea and

transformed the country. But now, she said, the U.S. was growing distant from the Holy Spirit, and it

was up to Korean Christians to bring the gospel back to the U.S. as they were doing for the rest of

152

See Webb Keane on semiotic ideology.

100

the world.

Korean Christians like samonim are well aware that their country was missionized, that the

gospel was “brought” to Korea, and that the religious practices of Koreans before missionization

were definitely not Christian.153 Most Christians that I spoke with were comfortable with the fact

that Christianity had come from somewhere else. They usually said that the gospel was something

that they had received and now it was Korea’s turn to pass it on to others.

From samonim’s perspective, for more than five hundred years Korea had been located at an

explicit periphery—of China, of Japan, and of the U.S. But since the end of the Korean war,

according to her, South Korea (the Republic of Korea), more and more has come to see itself as a

center for things—for manufacturing (e.g., Hyundae), for technology (e.g., Samsung), for the culture

industry (e.g., Korean Dramas, “the Korean Wave”), and for religion in the form of Protestant

Christianity. Samonim spoke about Korea as if it were an axis mundi, linking heaven and earth. And

at the center of this axis was the Church—specifically, for her, the Yoido Full Gospel church, which

has presented itself as a leader in the evangelicalization of South Korean Christianity and of the

development of the nation.

Indeed, when I attended services at Yoido Full Gospel Church in years past (starting in 2006), I

saw how each service began by restating the church’s dual role as Christian-Urban pioneer. Each

service began with an animated video narrative projected onto a giant screen behind the pulpit,

depicting the construction of the Yoido full gospel church on Yoido Island in 1973 (after it moved

from Seodaemun), when there was nothing else there. First an empty island, then the Yoido Full

gospel Church (1973), then the Parliament (1975), and then the high-rises and office buildings that

now cover the land. That is the, the church is depicted as leading the development of the city as it

urbanized. The church grew from a prayer meeting with David Cho and his future mother-in-law in

the 1950s, to a tent, to a church in Seodaemun, to a church of more than 800,000 (self-reported) on

an island directly on the Han River. The kind of prosperity that samonim had described in her

apartment as “gifts of God” was directly linked to this larger-scale socioeconomic transformation of

the country and its visible manifestation in the city of Seoul, especially in the form of the Korean

megachurch as a specifically urban social formation. For many Christians (and others) in Seoul, the

sound of the Yoido Full Gospel Church is the sound of a particular point in Seoul’s rapid

urbanization.

Sermons and Prayers

The Yoido Full Gospel Church emerged at a certain point in Koreas postwar socioeconomic

transformation, and its theology reflects—among other things—the particular aspirations of many

Christians at this time—for wealth, heath, and other forms of prosperity. These aspirations were

authorized by the church, and especially by Cho as a charismatic conduit for the word of God. And

the realization of these aspirations depends on a believer’s experience of the holy spirit through the

gift of tongues, or glossolalia. They must know how to hear and speak the sacred speech of the holy

spirit. But how does one hear the voice of god? How does one know the authentic sound of the

spirit? Much of the evangelical Christian labor is organized around learning to hear, what to perceive,

how to feel that god is speaking to one.154 But how does one know? And how is the sense of

153

Samonim was raised Buddhist and only converted to Christianity after meeting her husband. 154

See Luhrman 2012. When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God

101

knowing reinforced? I have elsewhere discussed the way ideologies of the “the word”—specifically

Christian language ideologies—figure into denominationally differentiated forms of accounting for

the movement of and access to the spirit. I argued that the word was conceptualized as an inerrable

thing in motion, rather than an event of semiotic production—as “The Word” moves, so does the

spirit.155 Now I want to turn to actual events of semiotic production – the way “The Word” comes

alive for these Christians.

In my analysis today, I focus on ritual speech site for the modeling of spiritual authority,

specifically the way in which certain forms of speech are treated as authoritative channels of spiritual

communication.156 One view of ritual from the point of view of semiotic function is as a form of

meaningful human activity that organizes social space, naturalizes social divisions, and essentializes

the attributes or properties of the social partitions. Such ritual sites become semiotic anchors for

social values and points of orientation cultural framing of appropriate and effective social behavior.

To see how this works, let us now go back to the bible verses I began with and situate them first

within a relevant stretch of the sermon, so that we can see how the recitation of bible verse figures

into the other forms of relatively “holy” speech.

I took the Bible verse above (Romans 12:2) from a sermon given by David Yoggi Cho on 29

October, 2006, called, “The Outer Person and the Inner Person” (겉사람과 속사람).157 In this

sermon, one can discern three basic settings or styles for the delivery of words to the congregation.

Normally, Cho begins his sermons by speaking emphatically, but still in a relatively normal or

unmarked sermonic style, framing his content around relevant Bible verses. Cho emphasizes a

certain point that the selected scripture is supposed to clarify and affirm. I call this type of speech his

hermeneutic style. It is characterized by prosody and an utterance structure that approximates

“normal” if somewhat excited public speech.

In making his various points, Cho sometimes breaks from his hermeneutic speech style and

moves into a new style characterized by extended repetition. At this point, Cho’s speech generally

assumes a clear rhythmic structure and a fixed pitch or repeated intonation contour. I call this the

intensificatory style. The poetics of repetition and parallelism function as a kind of intensifier, giving

emphasis to his hermeneutics, and also rhythmically indexing the coming of a more intense overall

experience (this is often accompanied by swaying in the audience).

Cho uses this intensificatory style to transition from the hermeneutic style to the recitation of an

actual Bible verse around which the sermon is organized. When he finally does recite the Bible verse

he increases the speed of his speech and changes the pitch (raising or lowering it) so that the verse is

practically chanted, with the consonants providing rhythmic punctuation. It is very important to note

that note that this switch is from denotation that he himself has authored (biblical hermeneutics), to

textual chunks (verses) for which he is the animator but not the author.158 I call this the recitational

style.

155

See Harkness 2010. 156 See Rupert Stasch, Michael Silverstein on ritual and oratory. See Talal Asad, Stee Caton on authorizing discourse.

157 This sermon is based on Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 4, Verse 16: “For which cause we faint not; but

though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.”

158

See Goffman 1974.

102

I have provided here an example of these three styles in an excerpt from Cho’s sermon in which

the Bible verse is embedded. The hermeneutic style is unmarked, the intensificatory style is in light

blue, and the recitational style is in red. A pitch analysis following the transcript shows the increasing

concentration of pitch and utterance segments toward a more chant-like form, from the biblical

hermeneutics, to the intensificatory stabilization of pitch (light blue), to the acoustically dense verse-

recitation (red). In this formula, Cho moves from more “spoken” to more “chanted” speech as he

moves from explanatory biblical hermeneutics, to intensificatory iteration and repetition of a main

point, to the lightening-speed recitation of scripture.

[Audio Recording of Sermon]

1. 속사람이 새로워지고 힘을 얻고 능력을 얻어서 겉 사람으로 살지 말고 이제

우리는 속사람으로 살아야 되겠습니다.

The inner person is renewed and receives strength and power; we should not live as the

outer person, but now we should live as the inner person.

2. [Amen!]

3. 속사람이 어떻게 새로워집니까? 말씀으로 새로워지는 것입니다.

How can the inner person be renewed? He can be renewed through the word.

4. [Amen!]

5. 말씀을 통해서 영적인 내가 누군지를 발견하게 되는 것입니다. 속사람이 어떠한

사람이냐,

Through the word, I can discover who I am spiritually. What kind of person is the inner

person?

6. 의로운 사람, 거룩한 사람, 치료받은 사람, 축복받은 사람, 영생복락을 얻은

사람, 영혼이 잘되고 범사에 잘되며 강건하게 된 사람이 속사람이다. 속사람은

택하신 족속이요, 왕 같은 제사장이요, 거룩한 나라요, 그의 소유된 백성이

되었다.

The inner person is a righteous person, a holy person, a healed person, a blessed person, a

person who has received the blessing of eternal life, a person who prospers in all things

and is healthy, just as his soul prospers. The inner person is [of God’s] chosen people, a

royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own subjects.159

7. 속사람은 알면 알수록 겉 사람에 대해서 강하게 일어날 수 있는 것입니다.

The more we know the inner person, the more we can rise strongly against the outer

person.

8. [Amen!]

9. 겉 사람의 공격을 물리치고 겉 사람을 따라 가지 않는 것입니다. 유혹에

넘어가지 않는 것입니다.

[The inner person] drives away the attacks of the outer person and does not follow the

outer person. [The inner person] does not fall under temptation.

159

In these last lines, Cho is quoting from the First Epistle of Peter 2:9 without citing the chapter and verse; he is

foreshadowing the explicit recitation of scripture shortly to come.

103

10. 그러므로 속사람을 말씀으로 우리가 강하게 해야 되는 것입니다.

Therefore, we must make the inner person strong with the word.

11. 롬 12: 2 에 “너희는 이 세대를 본받지 말고 오직 마음을 새롭게 함으로 변화를

받아 하나님의 선하시고 기뻐하시고 온전하신 뜻이 무엇인지 분별하도록 하라”

In Romans 12:2, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the

renewing of your mind [maŭm], that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and

perfect will of God.”

12. 말씀으로 우리는 새로워집니다. 또한 나의 의인은 믿음으로 말미암아 살리라고

했으므로 속사람은 육신이 주는 감각적인 정보로 살지 않고 말씀이 주는 정보로

삽니다.

Through the word we are renewed. Also, as it is said, “My righteous ones shall live by

faith,” the inner person does not live according to the sensual information given by the

flesh, but lives according the information given by the word.

Within the poetics of this text structure, as Cho moves closer to the recitation of scripture, the

stylistic delivery marks the shift from self-animated, self-authored hermeneutics to self-animated,

other-authored scripture. He is “opening his mouth,” so to speak, and letting it be filled up by the

word of god in the form of scripture. In this hierarchy, the Bible verse serves as an authoritative text,

indeed, the authoritative word, which ventriloquates Cho, speaking through him to the audience. His

faith is manifest in the way he recites the verse, i.e., as if it were not merely memorized, but actually

embodied within in him, emerging as what Cho refers to as the “secrets of the spirit” This style

becomes important when we then turn to the prayer styles of congregants at prayer meetings at the

Yoido Church, which feature the laying on of hands and occasional onsite healings.

Following the sermon (which can last as long as an hour), Cho instructs the congregants to pray

together. To open the prayer, he or an assistant pastor leads the congregation in chanting an honorific

vocative to God three times to summon the spirit: “Chuyŏ! Chuyŏ! Chuyŏ!” (literally, “O Lord!”).

Then the thousands of people in the audience in the main sanctuary break into intense, ecstatic

t’ongsŏnggido, or synchronous but unsynchronized group prayer. This prayer, Cho says, is supposed

to call out to the spirit, to demonstrate one’s faith, and to approximate the gift of tongues that

indicates spirit baptism and salvation.

104

People rise from their seats, shaking their bodies and waving their outstretched arms. For

approximately ten minutes, deacons roam the congregation, going from person to person, placing one

palm on the person’s head or back, and directing their other palm toward Cho and the cross. Cho

moves out in front of the pulpit and raises both hands, palms facing toward the congregation. With

his head lowered and his body in line with the towering backlit cross, mounted on the wall behind

him, he positions himself as the channel through which the Holy Spirit enters the church. This way,

the Holy Spirit has a direct route via prayer and touch to move from Cho to the deacons, and then

finally to the congregants.

At the Yoido Full Gospel Church, Cho instructs his congregants to pray for hours at a time as a

form of spiritual endurance training. According to Cho, the spirit can come at any time. But, as he

himself admits, in a Sermon on the “Benefits of Speaking in Tongues,” after an hour or so of prayer,

one runs out of things to say.160 So at that time, he says, one should switch to praying in tongues.

Importantly, members of the church do not necessarily consider these vocables to be the gifts of the

spirit; rather, they treat these sounds as the phonologized attempt at or orientation to glossolalia. Cho

says things to his congregants like, “If we open our mouth wide before God, God fills it up even

today.”161 And the use of these glossolalic forms constitute the opening of the spiritual mouth. It is

an intermediate stage of personally ecstatic faith as practiced between speaking in denotational text

and actually receiving the gift of tongues.

Cho’s model depicts words placed directly by God in each individual’s open mouth (or heart).

Cho (1979) explains this process by differentiating between two senses of The Word: logos and

rhema. He writes ‘logos is the general Word of God, stretching from Genesis to Revelation’ (Cho,

1979, p. 90), but ‘rhema is a specific word to a specific person in a specific situation’ (Cho 1979, p.

91). And he explains further how the Holy Spirit places The Word qua rhema directly in a believer:

Rhema is produced out of logos. Logos is like the pool of Bethesda. You may listen to the

Word of God and you may study the Bible, but only when the Holy Spirit comes and

quickens a scripture or scriptures to your heart, burning them in your soul and letting you

known that they apply directly to your specific situation, does logos become rhema. Logos is

given to everybody. Logos is common to Koreans, Europeans, Africans, and Americans. It is

given to all so that they may gain knowledge about God; but rhema is not given to everyone.

Rhema is given to that specific person who is waiting upon the Lord until the Holy Spirit

quickens logos into rhema. [Cho, 1979, p. 96–97; The Fourth Dimension]

160 많은 사람이 철야기도 할 때 보면 초저녁에는 기도를 열심히 하다가 초저녁이 지나가면 꾸벅꾸벅 졸고

할 말이 없어서 기도를 못합니다. 몇 시간씩 무슨 말로 그렇게 기도합니까? 저는 50년을 목회했어도 1시간

만 말로써 기도하고 나면 할 말이 없어요. 되풀이 하지 않고는 할 말이 없다고.. 그러니 하나님께 오래 기도

하려고 해도 말 할 줄 알아야 기도를 하지 할 말이 없는데 어떻게 기도를 합니까? 그러나 방언 기도를 하면

다릅니다. 우리가 우리말로 기도하다가 말이 끊어지고 할 말이 없으면 그 다음에는 방언으로 기도합니다. 방

언은 내가 노력해서 하는 것이 아니고 성령이 직접 내 입을 통해서 하는 것이기 때문에 방언으로 잔뜩 기도

합니다. 그러다가 내 말을 할 수 있는 기억이 돌아오면 방언을 그치고 또 내 말로 기도합니다. 그러다가 또

기도가 막히면 방언으로 기도합니다. 그래서 바울 선생이 말하기를 “내가 어떻게 할꼬? (20090215 – Benefits

of praying in tongues. )

161

우리가 하나님 앞에 입을 넓게 열면 하나님이 오늘날도 채워 주시는 것입니다. Cho, D.Y.-G., 2006c

(October 15). Hananim ŭl midŭra (Believe in God). <http://www.fgtv.com>.

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Recall the rapid-fired recitation of Bible verse that sounded as if it had been placed directly in Cho’s

mouth. In this case, Logos becomes Rhema. It is the audible quickening of the spirit. From words

that he authored to the words of God as recorded in scripture, Cho moves from a hermeneutic style to

an intensificatory style to a recitational style in which one can almost only pick out the phonological

shapes of the speech. And in this manner, Cho’s rapid-fire recitation of bible verse can provide the

phonological basis for the congregants’ own attempts at receiving the gift of tongues in t’ongsŏng

kido. The congregants’ prayers are produced on a single pitch or interval, and are punctuated by the

quick production of voiced consonants such as [d], [g], [b], and [l], which allows for the sustained

but rhythmic production of vocal pitch on a single vowel. They chant for 10 minutes in what sounds

like Cho’s own recitation of bible verse, often merely producing denotationally opaque sounds that

sound like Cho’s rapid-fire recitational style. In both cases—bible verse or (quasi-)glossolalia—these

sounds are manifestations of the “Word” of God.

[Audio Recording of t’ongsŏng kido]

Conclusion: Sacred Speech and the City

The scriptural “Word of God” in sermons as an example of holy, sacred speech is linked to the

holy, sacred speech of congregants in the form of their sound shapes of prayer. The relationship

between sacred speech and other forms of speech in a sermon seems to have some bearing on how

the congregants, in worship ritual, employ their own speech in order to access deity via prayer. In

conclusion, I want to consider how, for many of my Korean informants, these forms of speech, as I

pointed out earlier, are linked to populations as well as places in the city. It is not merely a working-

class/upper-class distinction at the level of sociolinguistic variation. Rather, the kinds of sociality

visibly attached to places in the city become the stereotypical sites in which the same sacred sounds

can be heard—or apperceived—in secular context.

As many of my informants pointed out—Christian and non-Christian—the ecstatic prayers one

hears at a service at Yoido Full Gospel church resemble those sounds one hears in a bustling market

or even in a loud restaurant serving everyday Korean food. They “sound” like the working class, but

they also sound like the noise of the urbanizing past reflecting specific, temporally located personal

and ethnonational aspirations. By contrast, for many of my informants, the sounds—and, importantly,

silence—of a place like Somang Presbyterian Church, the ‘intellectual church” of Apkujŏng,

resemble the sounds of a library, a university lecture, or an Italian restaurant—and the sound of a

country that has “arrived” at the table of advanced nations.

I spent all of 2008 conducting research in Somang Presbyterian Church in Apkujŏng. Somang

Church, literally the church of hope, was founded in 1977 as a prayer group led by Reverend Kwak

Sŏn-hŭi in the Hyundai (Hyŏndae) apartments of the upper-class neighborhood of Apkujŏng. Like

other large Presbyterian megachurches that minister to the educated middle and upper classes in

Seoul, Somang Church achieved exponential growth during the 1980s and early 1990s. 162

Construction for the church building was completed in 1982, but had to be expanded in 1987 to

accommodate the rapid growth of the congregation, which grew from a small prayer group to

162

See Chong (2008), Lee (2010).

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approximately 45,000 registered members in approximately two decades.163 Reverend Kim Chi-

ch’ŏl was made joint head pastor in 2002 and became head pastor in 2003, when Reverend Kwak

retired. According to a promotional video for the church, titled “The Story of Somang Church,”

membership was about 60,000 persons in 2006, but in the news coverage regarding the church,

membership is usually estimated at 70,000. Superficially like Yoido FG church, Somang Church is

also construed as an institution with Christian aspirations for Korea’s future place in the world.164

This is made clear by the stained glass window in the main chapel, where the Korean peninsula

(including North Korea) is enlarged and darkened at the center of a map of the globe.

Yet it draws a fairly strong line between itself and the Yoido Full Gospel church, not only in

terms of denomination and class, but also in terms of the causes of its growth. Whereas the Yoido

church celebrates its “cell strategy,” which relied on small prayer groups, often led by women, as a

means of recruiting members and growing the church, Somang Church denies having a growth

strategy, instead claiming that spiritual intellectuals were drawn to the church out of their own

spiritual interest. Its missionary strategy is another point of contrast: whereas Yoido Full Gospel

Church engages in direct missionization and church planting overseas. Somang supports overseas

missions but has no goals of maintaining its own churches abroad (c.f. Onnuri Church).

For both churches, the growth of Korean Christianity is the growth of the Korean nation. The

emergence of South Korea from the ashes of war and its transformation into an economic and

spiritual center is, according to these Christians, due to the grace and blessing of God. But the

respective perspectives of ethnonational advancement that the churches put forth are linked not only

to their denominational differences, but also to the spatiotemporal points in South Korea’s history,

the urbanization of Seoul, and the different aspirations of its inhabitants. These two churches

exemplify the timespace of urbanization at two points in time, in two geographical locations, with

two perspectives on the aspirations of its members. For my informants, these places are associated

with different parts of the city: the former with the areas north of the Han river, which saw the

earliest waves of urbanization in the 1960s and early 1970s, where poverty and informal dwellings

were widespread; the latter with the emergence of Kangnam and the rising middle and upper-middle

classes , the razing of the shantytowns in the 1970s and 1980s, and the emergence of Korea’s newer

identity in the 1990s as a place not just of militarized, compressed modernity but of Hallyu and

cosmopolitanism. And their theologies and liturgical styles reflect these populations.

163

See Osmer (2005). 164

See Harkness 2014..

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The stories that Christians tell about the growth of the churches in South Korea are obviously

linked to the socio-economic transformation of their country. This is an uncontroversial ethnographic

fact in the structuring of postwar Christian narratives of South Korea. In many ways, these churches

also tell the history of Seoul and its urbanization. Their stories are deeply intertwined with the

history of the city, and the “authoritative word” that one hears at the respective churches gains

authority from particular aspirational points in that history.

Nicholas Harkness is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Harvard University. Before arriving at Harvard,

Harkness was a Korea Foundation postdoctoral fellow at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Harkness

received his PhD from the University of Chicago, where his thesis was awarded the Richard Saller Prize for the most

distinguished piece of scholarship in the social sciences. This thesis forms the basis for his book manuscript: ‘A Clean

Voice: Singing, Christianity, and the Aesthetics of Progress in South Korea.’ Harkness also has published on language

and religion, paralinguistics and affect, performance and ritual, qualitative experience, and the role of language structure

in social differentiation.

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PANEL 4:

Urban Asymmetries - Religious Aspirations and Uneven Development

This panel addresses how the dynamics of urban inequality and spatial asymmetries are intertwined

with spiritual economies. Examples include spectacularly visible and wealthy megachurches in

affluent Gangnam to small storefront churches struggling to survive in low-income areas. This panel

considers how religious aspirations and contestations interact with these geographies of immense

inequalities and extraordinary asymmetries in Seoul. Particularly welcome are papers that discuss

religious projects with concrete geographical and socio-spatial dynamics, and papers that engage

with the concepts of aspirations, spatial asymmetry, territories of poverty, and persistence of

inequality.

Chair: HAN, Ju Hui Judy (University of Toronto, Canada)

Discussant: KIM, Alice S. (UC Berkeley, USA)

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Redevelopment, Seesaw Theory, and Religious Actors:

What’s at Stake?

Lisa Kim Davis

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)

Introduction

In the last several decades the distribution of where various socio-economic groups reside in Seoul

has shifted, as the urban landscape has undergone spatial reconfiguration. Low-income

neighborhoods have been systematically cleared from the upper altitudes of the city’s mountains for

almost three decades now and dispersed to far-flung edges of the city, as well as to basement units.

Before that, the lower altitudes had dense squatter communities that were cleared out. Both low-

lying and hillside urban poor villages have been replaced by high rise condominium towers offering

a higher standard of living by contemporary world city metrics at higher cost. Throughout the

frequent spatial contestations over the future of a neighborhood - its composition of buildings,

diversity, and prospects - religious groups and figures have often joined the array of resident political

actors, participating in vigorous discussion, debate and negotiation over the shape of the outcome.

This paper explores the general contours of religious actors presence in the recent systematic

rebuilding of Seoul, asking what is at stake for key religious figures and institutions in joining the

process of redevelopment.

As often asked in the study of human geography, why were the religious actors there?

That is, the process of urban redevelopment as it has unfolded in Seoul since the late 1960s and now

repeats throughout the largest cities of Asia has tested the democratic potential of large cities; what is

the capacity of various elements of urban society, including religious groups, to participate in

deciding who may live where? Of necessity leaving a thorough exegesis of religious involvement

to specialists, here I consider the record of religious actors from major strands of Christianity and

Buddhism in a number of neighborhoods as the seesaw movement of capital, in an embodiment of

what geographers call the seesaw theory of uneven development, has hopscotched its way back and

forth over the Han River, replacing many areas that are more than twenty years old with newer, more

expensive buildings via a continuous cycle of centrally-planned urban renewal.

I. Religious Practice and the City

Where does the urban meet with the geography of religions when it comes to redevelopment? All

over the place, is a cursory but inadequately vague answer, and in different ways. Dissolution of

gemeinschaft in exchange for the less tradition-bound, impersonal culture of urban living drives

people to make their community in churches or mega-churches and to look to proven belief systems

for their teachings of how to live. Job insecurity of wage labor and periodic unemployment spikes

keep people yearning for a better afterlife. Institutions of power, the major religious orders often

become property moguls or even states; take the Vatican as an extreme example. On a smaller scale,

the Oriental Mission Church of Los Angeles’ Koreatown evicts 40 units of rent-controlled

apartments housing elderly, disabled, and low-income persons in 2009 and provokes the ire of the

city’s social justice organizations, all to make a mega-sized parking lot for its large congregation.

Here we look at the record of urban renewal in South Korea as compiled by those facing

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displacement and their supporters to see where religious actors figure in. The not insignificant role

of religious actors in the Korean Urban Poor People’s Movement in its various manifestations is

considered, and the motivation for and nature of that religious participation characterized.

“together with New Town Evictees – on-site Christmas Mass,

Wangsipri 1-dong, December 25, 2008”

Displayed on area telephone poles and lamp posts in the area that winter, this poster calls

advertises a Christmas Day mass in 2008, held in a cul-de-sac of a working-class neighborhood in a

large area of east central Seoul that has in recent years been demolished to make room for upper

middle-class and luxury condominium high rise complexes, part of a current effort to make the north

half of Seoul as valuable in terms of real estate as Kangnam. The featured images are photos of

earlier events of the residents refusing eviction in what became a long and drawn-out multi-year

effort of residents to stay in the neighborhood during and after the redevelopment was first

announced beginning in 2005. This 2008 mass was sponsored by the Wangsipri New Town Tenants

Committee for Alternative Policy Measures, joined by two venerable organizations - the Korea

Housing Rights Coalition and the Roman Catholic Seoul Diocese Poor People’s Pastoral Committee.

We see riot police and authorities preparing to arrest a row of residents laying down on the ground in

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an October 9th

, 2008 protest, an earlier outdoor mass, a protester holding a sign that says “I want to

live [stay] in Wangsipri” and performers on a stage draped with the Korea Housing Rights Coalition

snail logo and abbreviated slogan of “poverty, life, community.” Harkening back to a tradition of

protest church services such as the 1973 Easter Mass marking public outcry against state brutality of

the Yusin era of General Park Chung Hee’s 1970s presidency, residents are summoned to the

Gopchang Alley [intestines stew specialty restaurant area] for an 11 a.m. worship service.

On that day hundreds gather including tenants comprising the local anti-eviction group, a

large number of priests, journalists, activists, poets and folk music performers to celebrate Christmas

outside in sub-zero midday temperatures, sharing a communally-produced ddôkguk afterward from

the open storefronts that volunteered their facilities. A combined speak-out, worship service with

communion, and community meal, the 2008 mass dignified residents’ efforts through a difficult

autumn three years into the urban renewal process of an especially large swath of prime urban land

under the latest “new town” program, applying methods of building satellite cities to inner city Seoul.

Christmas is a busy day for priests and families alike; why would this be happening in this unlikely

location in an unusually frigid winter?

Religious actors, backed by city- and nation-wide units of Christian and Buddhist religious

institutions have participated with other parties dedicated to South Korea’s democratization

movement in making a wider public aware of the continuous forced displacement of millions of

South Korea’s urban residents over the past four decades. Because of the tabula rasa, centralized

urban renewal approach to redevelopment via industrialized housing production -- efficient but often

ruthless -- mass evictions and domicide have been part and parcel of this recent rise of Seoul as a

global city, attractive to international investment and tourism. Tenants committees coalesced in

some of the neighborhoods undergoing urban renewal to negotiate for inclusion in the rebuilt area, in

addition to the house-owner/builder cooperatives that are found in every Seoul residential urban

renewal area as part of the “joint redevelopment” method of financing such projects. In many sites

in and around Seoul that sprouted tenants committees to request participation and decision-making in

planning for the new area while avoiding forced relocation, religious actors embedded themselves in

low-income communities and played integral parts in the de-centralized and lesser-known narrative

of the Urban Poor People’s Movement in South Korea, in both tangible and intangible ways. In

order to explain how the religious actors came to be found in redevelopment sites and why they are

there, it is helpful to first understand the structural forces underlying the urban renewal dynamic. I

will argue that religious groups are particularly suited to working in conjunction with this dynamic.

II. Uneven Development and the City

“Uneven development is the concrete manifestation of

the production of space under capitalism.” (Smith, 1984: 122)

The logic of the see-saw movement of capital helps explain the continuous cycle of urban renewal

practices in Seoul, this most dynamic of cities. How does this see-saw theory work? In the study

of urban built environment the relational aspect of the physical environment of buildings, roads, bus

stops, etc. comes alive, explaining what humans build where, and how humans relate to their

environment. Looking beyond the surface of distinct neighborhoods takes us into each area’s

historical trajectories, into who lives and works where, why, how and when. In certain historical

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periods, entire areas are torn up and replaced with a completely different set of buildings, roads, and

so on, but why? How are such decisions made, and who makes them, for whose benefit? Familiar

rationales such as city beautification, building aesthetic fads, or market demand for better facilities

alone only scratch the surface; peeling away layers leads us to understand what drives disinvestment

and reinvestment in locales. Many areas of cities serve their function without having been

beautified, so why is redevelopment the predominant narrative of recent decades in prospering

Seoul?

In the late 1970s, Neil Smith began to explore the mechanics of uneven input into the built

environment of cities in the West. In a now prescient account, the mechanics went like this: the

capitalist city in both its spatial successes and its failures produces inequality via what he called the

“ ’see-saw’ movement of capital. ” (1984/2008) This “geographical see-saw” (201) explains how

it is that no sooner do areas become fixed up, improved, made less dilapidated, more beautiful, and

so on than the capital in motion shifts to a new target. Much frustration expressed in the popular

press such as magazines and city blogs, by public intellectuals the world over about the transience of

successful economic development within a city would vanish if Smith’s see-saw concept were

widely embraced and city policies adjusted accordingly. That can hardly happen, so fundamental is

the dynamic of the see-saw to determining the built environment of the capitalist city at this point.

The see-saw operates at various scales – fueled by fierce competition, capital is moved between

countries, between leading cities of the world, between cities of one country, and within one city

between neighborhoods. People and players who reside and operate in a city react differently as the

see-saw moves, when the see-saw hits ground or tops out, depending upon their resources and roles.

The well-known popular phenomenon of bokpuin of Seoul, housewives who became wealthy via real

estate speculation in the late 20th

century, shows a street comprehension of the logic of the see-saw

with success as well as any corporate developer. Although South Korea’s redevelopment programs

are centrally-planned urban renewal at its most efficient, rather than a gradual creep of house-by-

house “gentrification,” this government planning works the see-saw with technocratic mastery.

In foregrounding “uneven development,” Smith continues by explaining the production of

space “as a social product”… “a product of social and historical practice.” (1984: 107) Smith’s

geographical space, is a “the totality of spatial relations organized… into identifiable pattern, which

are themselves the expression of… the structure and development of the mode of production…” ”

“…the patterning of geographical space as an expression of the relation between capital and labor.”

(114) “We do not live, act, and work ‘in’ space as much as by living, acting and working we

produce space,” Smith insists. (116) Absolute space is not eliminated entirely, but is produced

[emphasis mine] “as part of the larger production of relative space (116). Massey has recently

insisted, taking this line of argument further, that space is entirely “the product of interrelations.”

(2005: 9) Smith, although not referring only to cities but to space more generally, builds upon

Lefebvre’s notion of the production of urban space itself as a main product of the industrialized,

capitalist city, a now-popular concept explicated extensively in the works of Harvey and Soja.

Making and re-making the built environment becomes an end in itself, beyond imperatives of

functional need and demand, as city land is used to absorb and store excess capital and to multiply

capital for investment earnings. Minimizing the rent gap thus becomes an endless cycle, a major

driver of the urban economy.

Smith then goes on to discuss the contradiction in the production of space that undergirds

the see-saw theory. “The universality of the wage-labor relation under capitalism frees not only the

working class but also capital from any inherent tie to absolute space.” As wage labor is free to

move… “in most cases the poor must move to the city…” explaining periods of urbanization.

Adding a global trade dimension, one factor that accelerated the move of South Korean rural

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populations to the city in search of factory jobs, according to one account, was Public Law 480

whereby cheaper U.S. rice was brought in after the Korean War, putting Korean rice farmers out of

business. (1986: 1) This type of import dynamic is common in international development

narratives for Caribbean and African countries, as well. The contradiction, according to Smith, is

that while the worker, and capital, too, are ‘freed up to move, at the same time spatial fixity becomes

increasingly important.‘ (Smith: 115) For example, he argues that ‘workers become concentrated in

larger and larger numbers close to the workplace; low transport costs allow wages to be kept lower.’

(116) Therefore, “the differentiation of geographical space in the last century… is a direct result of

the need, inherent in capital, to immobilize capital in the landscape.” (120) Excess capital is stored

in the built environment. Land and real estate have long been considered a relatively safe place to

keep and grow one’s wealth.

Another key part of the see-saw mechanism Smith clarifies is the dialectic at work between

convergence as a decrease in spatial difference, on the one hand, and various divergence theses,

exploring how “spatial differentiation increases” (122, 281, 126); in other words, the tendency for

impoverished areas and wealthy areas each to grow more concentrated and segregated, until

corrected for. For Smith ‘the production of space is not random but follows a familiar pattern.

“… geographical patterns are the product of contradictory tendencies: 1st, the more that

social development emancipates space from society, the more important does spatial

fixity become; 2nd

.. . tendencies toward differentiation and generalization… emanate side

by side… As the latter contradictory dynamic plays itself out in reality, it results in the

production of space according to a very particular pattern… the pattern which results is

one of uneven development, not in a general sense but as the specific product of the

contradictory dynamic guiding the production of space. Uneven development is the

concrete manifestation of the production of space under capitalism.” (122)

There is more to Smith’s argument about nature and space, but suffice to say here that the making of

urban space by participating groups takes place through human agency interacting with the “see-

saw” mechanism. When times are flush, the uneven development dynamic may be unnoticeable,

but when financing become tight, competition between areas of a city intensifies. Smith argues that

Lefebvre’s “reproductionist thesis” referring to the increasing focus of the production of space on

cities, including residential areas, makes sense for post-World War II capitalism, but says that the

1980s will be the test. Judging from the acceleration of redevelopment in 1980s South Korea and

continuing into the present, mirrored by similar processes throughout Asia’s major cities, the see-saw

movement of capital seems to have been harnessed as a spatial solution to periodic economic crises

as competition between cities flourishes and Asian cities, too, face the loss of manufacturing to

cheaper shores.

III. Redevelopment-related Mass Evictions, Domicide and the City

Large-scale urban redevelopment has been a major productive activity in South Korean cities from

the second half of the 1960s, accelerating in the 1980s and continuing through the past two decades.

Through the mass production approach of “urban renewal” style redevelopment, older

neighborhoods are targeted for clearance, replaced with new sets of buildings, always taller and more

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expensive, and new patterns of streets. This practice of rebuilding addresses both the “spatial fix”

problem of a built environment that is no longer reaping maximum value for its property owners due

to a “rent gap,” and the lifestyle aesthetic project of providing comfortable but expensive residential

and commercial structures preferred by affluent urban populations of the globalized city.

The result of this era of the production of urban space in this manner is an improved supply

of housing for the upper-middle class and above in Korean cities such as Seoul, and the

disappearance of low-cost housing. This coincided with collapse of the extended family system

making smaller nuclear family units in demand, persistent popularity of living in the Seoul area, and

a burgeoning middle class. The mass removal of cheaper housing has been only partly ameliorated

by an active government social housing program that has made headway in fits and starts but never

compensated for what was lost. Spatial relocation of lower-income people to less convenient parts,

including edges, of the city is emerging as a trend that, considering the European urban model, may

lead to future social and political explosions of rage and disenfranchisement. The government

social housing system has yet to reach its ideal potential.

Working-class housing, much of it self-built during the 1960s and 1970s during initial

stages of the population boom in Seoul as millions rushed to the city for industrial jobs is almost

entirely removed at this point, with only a few remaining old working-class neighborhoods left.

Houses that were improved in more recent decades and even reconstructed in two to three-story

modern buildings are often eliminated, as well, as almost all low rise areas are becoming vertical in

Seoul. Porteous and Smith (2001) have used the term “domicide” to apply to geographies of

disappearance of affordable housing and traditional neighborhoods due to various causes, including

the human-instigated practice of urban renewal. Shao (2013) has applied the concept of “domicide”

due to urban renewal to the breathtaking account of Shanghai’s contemporary vertical transformation

as well. It is in a similar context, of accelerated domicide of affordable housing and associated

community in the context of a globalizing city, that religious actors are to be found working in

conjunction with working-class residents of South Korea’s capitol to keep an economically-viable

place to live.

IV. Religion, Domicide and Uneven Development

In this context, motivated by belief systems developed from scriptural teachings in the major

religions of Korea, religious actors joined in with low-income residents, housing rights activists and

often, university students, at an internationally-detectable level from the late 1960s onward. The

relocation of Seoul residents in the Gwangju Daedanji relocation program, where Seongnam City is

now, is usually referred to as the start of an organized Urban Poor People’s Movement in South

Korea. Residents of urban squatter villages in Yongdudong, Majangdong, Ch’eongyech’eon,

Bongch’eondong, Soongindong, Ch’angsindong, Yôkch’ondong, Sangwangsipridong,

Hawangsipridong and so on were forceably relocated using military trucks to the outskirts in what

became a failed resettlement program of 1967 to 1971. (KOCER 1998: 113) Religious personnel

stood with relocated residents who had organized themselves resulting in concessions from the Seoul

government in the first large-scale violent confrontation with authorities against such practices in

1971 (ibid.,115). Eviction-related practices evidently had been on-going since 1945 according to a

log of newspaper headlines (ibid., 429-30) and continued after the 1971 Gwangju uprising. The

year before in 1970, a public housing collapse in the night, due to corrupt construction, known as the

Wawoo Apartment incident resulted in 32 deaths (IDOC, 1976: 365) and in the ensuing uproar, the

city-wide coalition “Citizens Apartments Residents Self-Management Association” is mentioned,

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although I have yet to see where its range of activities are discussed. In a 2012 discussion with the

geographer Soja he said to me, ‘do you mean to tell me there has ever been an organized urban poor

people’s movement in South Korea?’ in complete disbelief, so little known the record of anti-eviction

community organizations beyond those participating. Because of military and authoritarian

governments from 1945 on through 1987, and a strategic politics of naming of component groups

and coalitions, the full history of South Korea’s Urban Poor People’s Movement requires further

archaeological excavation, and possible connection to housing-related activities during the period of

colonization by Japan bear scrutiny, as well.

Scriptural based motives for participating in the Urban Poor People’s Movement over four

decades since Gwangju Daedanji include, in the Christian cases, the following familiar tenets: caring

for one’s neighbor (“Thou shalt love thy neighbor…” Lev. 19.18), honor and respect for poor people

(see, for example, “Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth” Matthew 5, The Beatitudes),

sharing of land and property (“…to each according to his need” Acts 4:34; also Acts 2:41-47), as

well as the practice of Jesus and his disciples to go and live among the poor. Such embedness is

often referred to as walking the walk, not just talking the talk, as a route to constructing a just society.

For example, sharing meals seated together was intended to reorganize honor hierarchies of a caste-

based society. (Bartchy 2002) South Korea’s minjung theology clearly resonates here, but I would

not venture to guess how direct the involvement of its practitioners has been as it has not been made

explicit to me.

In addition to Roman Catholic and Protestant denominations of Christianity, various

Buddhist sects, in particular Wôn Buddhist groups, also dedicate personnel to what is referred to as

social or community practice in accordance with their basic religious belief systems. Doing good

work to the poor was a route to heaven in medieval Europe. (Lancaster, 1991: 63) For Wôn

Buddhists, this work falls under the last of The Four Essentials, also explicated as The Four Great

Principles: selfless service to the public. (Wôn Bulgyo Chôngjôn, 2001 official translation) It also

falls under the Buddhist doctrine of the universal fact of suffering. “…both rich and poor suffer…

the poor suffer and should be helped; the rich suffer and should be helped. The rich should help the

suffering poor and the poor should help the suffering rich” rather than to shame the poor ‘by making

them the object of special assistance.’ (Lancaster: 71) Thus, it can be said that this interrelational

aspect of theological ethics of both Buddhist and Christian faith and belief systems shares a basic

compatibility with the see-saw theory of uneven development.

V. Domicide and Saengjon’gwan

“Even a stone must have a place to sit.”

-Jei Jeong Ku (UCA News, 1986)

The concept of “saengjon’gwan” is at the core of the South Korean democratization movement’s

localized activities of the Urban Poor People’s Movement. Cries for saengjon’gwan, or ‘the right to

exist’ (to survive, to live) are the basis for mobilizing populations facing eviction and displacement

to form tenants committees in modern Seoul. The above quote declared by Jei, a founding leader of

the housing and community cooperative branches of the Urban Poor People’s Movement in the

1970s and 80s, captures the geographical aspect of redevelopment contestations which occur due to

the tendency to leave low-income tenants out of the production of urban space.

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Beyond hanging on to a place to live, communities fighting to stay put have dedicated

major effort to the challenges of running cooperative economic ventures. Beyond the issue of

housing, the local economic cooperatives [kongdongch’e] include clothing manufacture, food

cooperatives, credit unions, and other types of business cooperatives as an integral part of local

mobilizations in urban areas from the late 1960s onward. The cooperative movement builds upon

rural agricultural practices of ‘durae’ for hundreds of years at harvest time in Korea, expanded by

Korean Christian organizations dating back to the colonial period (Park, forthcoming) and adapted

after liberation as a self-help collective strategy (for extensive treatment of this history see Kim and

Ku, 2009: 55-112). Neighborhood evictee groups since Gwangju Daedanji have embraced

cooperatives as a key component of building sustainable communities inclusive of themselves,

continuing to the present. Religious actors such as pastors, priests, nuns and brothers are often,

although not always, part of such locally-run operations. Initially seeded with start-up funding from

religious denominations and foreign faith-based foundations in their earlier permutations, the

present-day manifestation of cooperatives in urban neighborhoods are often part of the social welfare

strategies of district government offices in Seoul. It reflects the theoretically informed nature of

Urban Poor People’s Movement groups, who recognizing the see-saw movement of capital in

practice if not in name, are quick to foreground the building of local economies as part of their self-

reliance and community-building agenda.

VI. Religious Actors and Community under Redevelopment

“They treated us well; we are so thankful…” “Everybody liked the nuns… they prepared

soap and useful gifts for us all when we had to move…” (elderly Buddhist couple, 2000)

The main actors in redevelopment contestations are the long-time residents of various positions who

stand to benefit from rights to a future condominium or lose cheap housing. Religious actors who

have become residents and/or been present in solidarity have worked from a position of group self-

help problem solving. Some have been trained formally by Alinsky or in the Alinsky tradition.

The Chicago-based Industrial Areas Foundation active from 1940 on stuck to the principle of never

doing for others what they could do for themselves. However, Alinsky organizing has been

critiqued for relying upon external organizers, top-down leadership (Chun, 2009), patriarchal style

relying largely upon males as visible leaders (Stall and Stoecker, 1998), and so on. It could be

argued that the South Korean “community organization” tradition embraced by the Urban Poor

People’s Movement improved upon some of the alleged weaknesses of Alinsky-style groups by

embracing decentralization and carefully avoiding not only the appearance of, but the actual

management style of, top-down male-dominated leadership. So, while adapting the Alinsky

tradition served as an ideal entry for religious groups to participate in social justice struggles with

urban poor communities, as Korean Christian and Buddhist groups are predominantly male-led and

patriarchal in organization as befits the Confucian tradition, the de-centered organic problem-solving

manner of neighborhood movement groups benefits from active co-ed participation and a higher

percentage of women on the front line than most other channels of the South Korean democratization

movement.

In my initial fieldwork on anti-eviction organizing, I was interested in how far evangelical

agendas were pushed on communities resisting eviction, and repeatedly it seemed not to be at all an

issue. For example, out of about 120 households in one area that stayed to negotiate for inclusion

as a tenants committee in the late 1990s:

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B: Does it matter if you don’t attend [church]?

A: Doesn’t matter. Only about six households practice Roman Catholicism, about the same

number Protestant; the rest are Buddhists or nonbelievers or those who practice their faith

independently by themselves.” (woman resident to me, 2000)

Women religious actors were present in a number of 1990s and 2000s redevelopment areas

as pastors, nuns, and lay professionals; nonetheless, in my interrogations I was only successful in

getting them to speak, on or off tape, about the particular function they worked on, such as job

finding services, lunch delivery for the shut-in elderly, youth programming, and so on, but never a

word about their career aspirations or personal professional trajectories. The same can be said for

the many male religious actors who have dedicated their lives to urban poor ministry and anti-

eviction causes, human-centered planning, local economic cooperatives, and similiar endeavors

throughout the 1990s and in the present, visible when conflicts erupt such as the Yongsan Tragedy.

Further scholarship is needed to document and analyze these activities and actors.

In contrast, one can trace in retrospect how a number of male religious figures of the 1970s

came to national and international prominence building religious careers filled initially, at least, with

work in or support for urban anti-eviction causes. It is not the intention to narrate that version of

history here, but it would be equally awkward to not mention a few such early cases. Rev. Park

Hyung-Kyu is one such figure, a major leader for human rights and the democracy movement, a

founder of the Urban Industrial Mission which initially worked with urban poor areas, and also initial

chair of Yonsei University’s Urban Research Institute; of humble origins, Cardinal Stephen Kim

earlier headed the Young Catholic Workers’ Association, later frequently opening the Myeongdong

Cathedral grounds to the dislocated; Oh Jae-sik trained with Alinsky after working in the Student

Christian Movement, led the Christian Conference of Asia-Urban Rural Mission in South Korea, and

was a founding leader of the Community Organizations movement still today the base for the Urban

Poor People’s Movement, finally heading World Vision’s North Korea program; Rev. Kim Jin-hong’s

Hwalbin Church of 1970s Ch’eonggyech’eon mentored Fr. John Daly, S.J. (Jung Il-woo) and Jei

Jeong Ku; Kim has gone on to build the Doorae communitarian villages in South Korea and China,

led the inaugural worship for President Lee Myung Bak and founded the political consortium New

Right Union in the mid-2000s; Fr. Daly and Jei went on to found the three villages under the Bogum

Jahri intentional community umbrella with evictees from several neighborhoods; Jei served in the

National Assembly; and so on. (sources: Kang, 2005; Cho, 2004; Hudson Institute, 2006; Lankov,

2012; LOCOA, 2008; “Trial Verdicts,” 1974; UCA News, 1986)

The Urban Poor People’s Movement facing redevelopment struggles during these decades

has been intimately intertwined with the South Korean democratization and human rights movement;

it has kept the lowest profile of all of the components and stuck with a de-centralized, local

engagement approach. The participation of university student activists as teachers and youth

workers in the urban poor communities, as part of the democratization movement of the 1980s and

1990s, has not been fully explored but a number have gone on to prominence in government and

academe; some of these student participants came to neighborhoods via Christian student groups.

Unraveling the connections, and the disconnects, between local redevelopment tenants committees

and the larger democracy movement would require further painstaking exploration of these histories

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and herstories; this would also help to discover how the low-income portion of anti-evictees

movement groups and Urban Poor People’s Movement are overshadowed by middle-class groups in

the present-day pluralist democracy scene. Long-standing groups such as several pastoral

associations for the urban poor and for social and community work are the enduring organization

centers where religious actors of the 1990s come together over redevelopment and related issues.

It must also be noted that religious actors electing to live and work among low-income

communities may be part of religious institutions not supportive of their work. For example,

Reverend Drescher of Germany, an alumnus of the Sanggyedong 173 Area debacle of the mid-1980s

that later led to the run-in with authorities over the Olympic torch route, was in touch with a

colleague in 2001 who had been dismissed from her or his work with an urban poor community

church by their Protestant denomination and was struggling for their own career and livelihood.

The embedded work discussed above is far more committed than charity giving by affluent parishes

– although a few have become involved with affordable housing programs, and is founded upon a

spatial logic of being there in solidarity. The presence of respected religious figures amidst future

evictees may cause consternation to middle class residents living in the area, who innocently strive to

make a windfall by their presence at the moment of urban renewal. Those who stand with evictees

are exposed to the same threat of physical violence and scorn that the targets of eviction face.

Other angles of study of religious involvement in redevelopment neighborhoods are

conceivable, as well, involving other socio-economic classes of neighborhood residents. Do church

women join kye financial sharing circles at their parishes in order to obtain capital for condominium

purchases? Churches are among the hundreds and thousands of buildings in redevelopment zones;

how often do they join the owner-builder cooperatives participating in the redevelopment

partnership? These are topics for further investigation by scholars of the religion and society

interface.

VII. Mutual common ground

To return to Christmas Day, 2008, then, why were the people there celebrating mass outside when it

was 23ºF in the former Gopchang Alley of the former Wangsipri? Organized religion and religious

personnel participated with residents to show solidarity, bolster community spirit, draw attention, and

help legitimize demands for inclusion, at most a blip on the evening news. Unlike in the numerous

back room negotiations, daily encounters with hired eviction thugs, arts events for affected school

children, meetings, tenant protests and rallies of the 2008 to 2010 period for this particular group, the

Christmas and Easter holidays were significant moments where religious actors took center stage

with evictees. Standing in solidarity with communities facing eviction turns out to be a regular act

over the decades for a limited population of religious actors – priests, monks, brothers, nuns, and lay

leaders, but more often their role has been as part of the crowd.

The role of religious actors in tenants’ group campaigns to be physically included in the

planning for the rebuilt neighborhood is integral to the coalition of tenants committees facing

redevelopment, in material and intangible ways. Religious actors lend symbolic legitimacy to

tenants groups, dignifying endeavors to participate in redevelopment planning. Religious

institutions run programs of practical service such as study centers, youth programs, employment

clearinghouses, and meal programs for the elderly. Their presence before, during and after

redevelopment serves to bear witness to the needs of working-class populations, helping to influence

social policy and programming by government. The neighborhood presence may offer religious

institutions the opportunity to own real estate in the neighborhood, as well. The geographic

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presence of religious groups in various localities helps facilitate this symbiosis. As Faye Moon

once relayed to me when I first began to study anti-eviction groups, “It’s easy to organize through

Church. It meets regularly and has a stable place.”

Although the components of the Urban Poor People’s Movement such as housing rights,

community organizing, and evictees are the lesser known part of South Korea’s democratization

movement, these components have persisted and regrouped repeatedly with a multiple decade

longevity due in part to the sustained contributions of major religious institutions and actors to social

justice causes. These components barely appear visible in overall accounts of the democracy

movement (Collection #358; Katsiaficas, 2012; Lee, 2007; Lie, 2998); likewise, wider religious and

democracy movements are barely detectable in the local histories of the anti-evictees and housing

rights movement (KOCER, 1998). It takes a familiarity with at least three fields: religious history,

democracy movement, and Urban Poor People’s movement components to adequately characterize

the role of religious actors in urban redevelopment. This paper suggests some routes in to more

adequately analyzing the various, overlapping contributions to each others’ worlds.

Conclusion

Religious actors have played an important part in the organizations of South Korean urban poor

communities including anti-eviction groups, self-help cooperative businesses, and housing rights

through their presence living and working in neighborhoods since the 1960s. These community

organizations comprise the Urban Poor People’s Movement as it has endured in its de-centralized

form through nearly fifty years of rapid urbanization, a lesser-known part of South Korea’s

democratization movement. As the seesaw movement of capital has accelerated, driving a

continuous cycle of urban redevelopment, religious actors continue to contribute by running

neighborhood organizations such as parishes, study centers, child care, and employment

clearinghouses. The religious figures help with building bridges between insular working-class

neighborhoods, by connecting local groups with major religious institutions at the city, national and

international scales for funding, publicity, and skills sharing purposes, by participating in and thus

dignifying the housing rights movement in an area where ideologies of affluence dominate, and by

facilitating connection with other related democratization causes of the day through denominational

and interfaith networks. Although not a explicit goal of the religious participation, the presence of

religious actors has given their religious institutions a foothold in diverse areas of the city.

Participation as integral players in the Urban Poor People’s Movement by religious actors represents

one of the best examples of ecumenical collaboration and co-existence sustained over decades in

South Korea’s democratization movement.

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Lisa Kim Davis is Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of California, Los Angeles

(UCLA) in the United States. Her work focuses on urban geography, housing, and Korea. She is particularly interested in

how urban inequality is reflected in or countered by the use of urban space such as by spatial patterns of residence.

Current projects focus on affordable housing, urban community, local citizenship, popular and feminist perspectives on

the built environment, gender and public space, and housing practices.

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Being Awake in the 24 hour City:

The Power of Prosperity in Pre-dawn Prayer Meetings and Nighttime Market

Park Seo Young

Dept. of Anthropology, Scripps College

These days we have a lot of 24-hour businesses around us….When I come to church for pre-

dawn prayers, even in that early time, I see more people coming out of the 24-hour restaurants,

convenience stores and karaokes than I have expected. Today we are living in an age when pre-

dawn businesses flourish. … I thought, if pre-dawn businesses can work out with the energetic

young people, then why not our pre-dawn prayer meetings.165

Daebok Choi, a pastor and the author of 새벽에 목숨을 걸라 [Bet Your Life on the Dawn]

suggests finding a way to attract Christian youth to the pre-dawn prayers. In one of his sermons,

Choi proudly introduces the accomplishment of Samil 166Church in Seoul: a thousand young people

attend the pre-dawn prayer everyday, challenging general assumptions about the pre-dawn prayer

attendees often being housewives and elderly people, as young Koreans, especially men, are the

protagonists of the expanding nighttime economies, and would have a particularly hard time waking

up and making their way out that early in the morning. Redirecting the energy of young people to the

pre-dawn prayers, according Choi, will render the future of the Christian Church with a great

capacity to “transform the world in the midst of it.”

The aspirations of prosperity and flourish mobilize and are also fueled by capitalist urban

processes. As in Choi’s observation, qualitative temporal registers .the pre-dawn, youth, anticipated

future--- are tied with the meaning of growth and fulfillment and make the particular spaces of

church and the city. For the past few years I have been working in Seoul’s Dongdaemun Market, a

massive cluster of garment factories, wholesalers, and retail shopping malls. The market is famous

for cheap clothes following the latest fashion trends and its 24-hour, “always open” businesses, ones

from which that pastor Choi would want to retrieve Seoul’s youth. In this paper, I propose to explore

how the two urban sites fuel and are fuled by the aspiration for prosperity spatio-temporality by

particular qualities of time, space, and embodied practices of people lie at the center of analysis. First,

I will examine the pre-dawn prayer meetings by looking into the recent popular and religious

discourses. With the analytic insight into the lived spatiotemporality that I gained from this, I will

revisit my ethnographic work in Dongdaemun Market. By “being at the right place in the right time”

people collectively embody and experience the possibility of prosperity, whether religious or

monetary.

The two sites are located in the temporally opposite ends of the day (or night) in the

24hourizing Seoul. Spiritual economy and nighttime economies such as hagwons, cafes, gyms,

shopping malls and hair salons configure the cityscape populated for 24-hours and create an

impulsive atmosphere for young people to be constantly awake and maximize their time by engaging

165

Choi, Daebok. 2012. Saebyeoke Moksumeul Geola [Bet Your Life on the Dawn]. Seoul: NekseoseuCross. 166 For transliteration of Korean, the paper follows the Revised Korean Romanization by the Ministry of Culture, Sports

and Tourism.

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with public activities.

Scholarly inquiry on the term “24-hour city” increased when there was a growing interest in

nighttime in the city as a space to be revitalized or regulated within the emerging post-fordist

industries of consumption and leisure and creative economy. A prominent series of work centered

around British and Australian planning projects167 and gentrification processes.168 Living in the 24/7

world is also viewed as the exposure to the biopolitics of time in the late capitalism.169 The notion of

working fell apart in the late capitalism, in which “good” subjects under capitalism who recalibrate

their daily lives are expected to find ways to be on the top of one’s time. Flexible work hours outside

the 9-5 frame and individualized forms of employment foster the imperative of ceaseless

selfmanagement and market-oriented organizations of life.

While these perspectives form a relevant context for Seoul and will be partially related to some

of the discussion of this paper, my primary interest in situating Dongdaemun market and pre-dawn

prayer meetings in the 24-hourzation of Seoul is to highlight the spatial-temporal qualities as always

particular, composing the urban texture, and entangled with the people’s embodied movement and

experiences living in the city. I will challenge a notion of time-space as a mere backdrop or a

consequence of processes of urban economy. Dongdaemun market and pre-dawn prayer meetings

two prominent sites when we think about Seoul’s 24-hourization, but both have long histories and

have shaped the city-scape. Therefore, I will not treat the two sites as examples of the coherent

emerging urbanity. Instead, the significance and operations of these sites get rearticulated within the

changing urban context and by the everyday practices and subjective interpretations of the people as

they across churches, markets, and the city.

Pre-dawn Prayers

“Pre-dawn prayer” could mean an individual practice and meditation. Numerous references in the

bible suggest the dawn is the time when people are spiritually serene, not disturbed by the complex

chores of life yet, which makes an optimal for the most direct connections with the god. In

contemporary Christian churches, though, Pre-dawn prayer meetings are often practiced in the form

of “Teuksae [특새]”: special pre-dawn prayer meetings, an intensive period that ranges from ten days

to a few weeks when the collective prayer besides regular services of the church takes place. The

special weeks of the predawn prayers are used as a way for the growth and flourishing of the church.

One such example is Myengseong Church. On March 4-5, 2013, Myeongseong Church held a

global conference, entitled “Pre-dawn Prayers and the Growth of Churches.” Established in 1980 in a

small corner of a commercial building in Myeongildong, a neighborhood in the east-southern Seoul,

Myongseong Church has been holding its pre-dawn prayers every March and September. The church

gradually grew in size for the past three decades, and the pre-dawn prayer meetings became its

167 For instance, Bianchini, Franco. 1995. Night Cultures, Night Economies. In Planning Practice and Research

10(2):121-126

168 Chatterton, Paul and Roberts Hollands. 2003. Urban Nightscapes: Youth Cultures, Pleasure Spaces and Corporate

Power. London: Routledge; Hae, Laam. 2013. The Gentrification of Nightlife and the Right to the City: Regulating

Spaces of Social Dancing in New York. London: Routledge

169

For instance, Sharma, Sarah. 2011. The Biopolitical Economy of Time. Journal of Communication Inquiry 35:439.

125

signature rituals having 65,000 to 70,000 attendants a day. Korea’s pre-dawn prayers are widely

known and quintessentially Korean, as a “localized form of global religion of Christianity that

immersed in Korean’s spiritual culture.”170

Some are critical about some of pre-dawn prayer taking a form of massive scale revivals and

how the size of those events are used as a secular measurement of the devotion. The growth-centered

developmentalism and the heated competitions among mega churches have been a major criticism

directed at Korean evangelical Christianity. Pre-dawn prayer meetings rapidly mobilized large

populations and have played a significant role in the expansion and growth of Korean churches.

Critical voices are also concerned with escalating tendencies: the strict obsession of the formality of

time rather than the quality and concentration of the prayers or the pressure on the attendance rather

than the voluntary participation.171

Others associate the pre-dawn prayer as one example of a new mode of life in neoliberal Korean

society where time-management is a virtue. It is not rare to see Christian self-help publications that

suggest meticulous tips of time management as a lesson from the bible. These publications actively

draw from the “An Early Bird” discourse and articulated with the Christian values. Many also

introduce success stories of well-known professional and celebrity figures who actively incorporated

pre-dawn prayers in their lives and eventually experienced miraculous transformations of their

lives172 As Dongjin Seo argues, there is no salient difference among the secular, spiritual, and

market-driven self-development in that they all delineate an entrepreneurial self. 173 Time

management, according to Seo, is at the most center of the successology [성공학] whether it

emphasizes the ethos of dawn, number of hours, productive time, or fun time. Ultimately, all of them

are based on the techniques that are already entrepreneurial.

Yet, what makes this collective ritual more intriguing as a public, urban phenomenon is how this

type of ritual materializes religious aspiration for spiritual life. The urban density, transportation, and

built environment seem to condition the scale of the pre-dawn praying meetings. In turn, the material

and affective energy coming from the intermittent and regular meetings shape the one segment of the

24-hour city space. Ethnographic work by religious studies scholars inspires my interest in pre-dawn

prayers in Seoul as well as in Dongdaemun Market. For instance, Lara Deeb suggests through her

ethnographic study of Shi’i Lebanon that the public expressions and practices of piety fabricate the

urban texture. Her analysis of the urban texture consists of sights, sounds, and temporal cycles.174 As

170

Seo, Hwadong. 2012. Myeongseong Kyohoe Sebyeok Kido, Maeil 7 Manyeomyeongssik Moyeo [70,000 people

attended in the daily pre-dawn prayers of Myeongseong Church]. Hankook Kyeongje, March 2012

171 For instance, Jeongseok Rhee, Saebyeok Gidoeui Sinhakjeok Banseong. IJeongseok Gyosueui Sinhak Mundap

[Professor Rhee’s Q&A in Theology]. http://www.jsrhee.com/QA/prayer.htm. Accessed in June 1st, 2013.

172 For example, Park, Chanho and Gu-Jaecheon. 2010. Saebyeok Gidohaneun CEO [Pre-dawn praying CEOs]. Seoul:

Ganggaten Pyeonghwa; Aron Park, 2011. Saebyeok Gido Iyagi [Stories of Pre-dawn Prayers].Seoul: CLC

173 Seo, Dongjin. 2009. Jayueu Euiji Jagi Gyebalui Euiji [The Will to Freedom and the Will to Selfdevelopemnt]. Seoul:

Dolbegae. p.310

174 Deeb, Lara. 2006. An Enchanted Modern: Gender and Public Piety in Shi’I Lebanon. Princeton: Princeton University

126

much as the visible presence of images, built forms, traffics of people, the invisible sound, energy

and particular affect configure and compose the embodied experiences of the city. This is

temporalized space, interweaved with the particular temporal moments, cycles, and subjective senses

of time.

The “dawn-scape” consists of thousands of people overflowing the mega church buildings,

stadiums, and media.175 Even in the smaller churches in which the pre-dawn prayers take place on a

daily basis, it is important to have a substantial number of people in the church. Blog postings and

comments in the online church communities comment on how they are amazed by the presence of

others while the rest of the world are asleep and interpret the collective prayers as an experience to

bodily feel the proof of god’s love and will. The reverence and spirituality is materialized tangible

and legible through the nexus of the time, space, and body.

The bodily, material experiences of “being in the right place, in the right time” do not separate

the spiritual fulfillment and the personal growth (including monetary success). With the declared

faith in, passionate desire for, and anticipation of the future to come, the aspiration is a conduit of

everyday practices and particular project of life. In turn, the grounded, material, and the collective

experience of the energy and affect strengthen the aspiration.

The popular, “always-open” shopping malls and speedy production and circulation of garment

posit the market exemplary site of the 24-hourization of Seoul and disrupt the conventional starting

and ending time of work. The Dongdaemun branch of the famous Sunbogeum Church of actively

incorporates the nighttime working schedules of the vendors. Buried in the wholesale mall buildings,

the church holds pre-dawn prayers everyday, which symbolizes a deeper devout of the members.

The rule of Dongdaemun market is very strict. … Tenants (of each shopping malls) are required

not to be absent during the business hours, until 6am. You are charged penalties and eventually

evicted for the absence of more than the designated limit. Under this condition, the attendees of

pre-dawn prayers proves a remarkable spiritual devotion...176

According to this newsletter, the pastors go around the wholesale market before the pre-dawn

prayers starting at 5:00am, to pray for the individuals and encourage them to come to the collective

prayers. Most of the church members are wholesalers and traders, and the pastor is well aware of

their work conditions. The church claims to support the spiritual life of “all the people” [만민] by

embracing members across Christian denominators opening the church for 24-hours from the year

2012.

The commercial success of the market agents are incorporated in the essential part of collective

prayer cycles and events, such as “Consecrate Assembly for New Spring Collection [봄신상품축복

성회]” in March or the foreign language programs for the vendors. The prayer practices become

more mundane material experiences that fosters the aspiration for prosperity.177 This religious

Press.

175 The pre-dawn prayers and revivals of mega-churches sometimes take place in a big-scale stadiums and also often get

broadcasted through internet and cable channels. 176 Sunbokeum Gyohoe Sinmun. Sep 2, 2012. P.6

177 Sunbokeum Gyohoe Sinmun. April 28, 2012. P. 9.

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practice articulates (the blurred division of) the dusk and the dawn for the workers, and forge the

lived temporality of the devotees who make deliberate effort to catch up the tight schedule of

working in the nighttime market and the pre-dawn meetings. The material and affective energy to be

awake, to work, and to pray together come together and saturate the dawn-scape for the Christians in

Dongdaemun.

Landscape of People

Murasaki, a Japanese buyer who manages a retail store in Nagoya, Japan, questioned of “the cost-

efficiency” of the large number of working people. “Why are there that many working people? They

seem Mudani Ooi [wastefully excessive].” It was during our interview started at11:00 pm, in a small

coffee shop inside the corner of a wholesale mall building. Across the narrow hallway from the table,

wholesale store staff members and a deliveryman were piling up packages of clothes wrapped in

plastic bags. Murasaki had just finished the first part of the routine he did during his frequent

business trips to Korea. His routine started at 9:00 PM and consisted of running around the wholesale

market, making orders and packing up the items he had to carry to the airport. I arranged an

interview before he started the second part of his routine, which consisted of more relaxed window-

shopping activities (in this case, as there is no window, he called it “corridor shopping”) to get an

idea of what was new in the high-end retail stores.

In contrast to Murasaki’s skepticism toward the seemingly excessive numbers of people, Dami,

a 29-year old resident in Changshin-dong, one street across the shopping mall area of Dongdaemun,

had a different opinion. “I feel like some parts seem dead.” I asked her what she meant by “dead,”

she said “there are not enough people, compared seven or eight years ago. Back then, it was even

more vibrant and lively. There should be more.” While the presence of people in Dongdaemun would

not meet the “adequate number” of consensus, the crowd, whether producers or consumers of the

Market is the integral part of this nighttime market to be viable. In this section, I take a bit closer

look into the presence of flooding people in Dongdaemun, and discuss how they transmit the idea of

the market’s operation and foster the prosperous life for the insiders and outsiders.

Dami lives in Changshin-dong neighborhood, close to the Dongdaemun marketplace. 29 years-

old and with a four-year college degree from a university in Seoul, Dami still has not figured out

what she wants to do in her life. After having spent a few months taking language course in the U.S.,

Dami started to feel that her major in the Library and Information Science does neither excited her

interest nor gave her job security. Dami wanted to have a concrete manual skill [기술], which for her

felt like more a tangible future planning than staying with office work as her parents wanted. This

dream led her to take sewing skill classes in the neighborhood, where I met with her.

In our interview, Dami pointed out a tall condominium located between her place and the

wholesale market. She recalled how she used to spend a lot of time around the condominium as she

enjoyed observing people coming in and out of the building dress fashionably, and work at the

nighttime wholesale store or running internet businesses based in Dongdaemun. Dami dreamed of

this sort of a work for herself; far from that dream, she still found it fun for her to hang out in the

market, watching people work and imagining what their lives were like. “As a young person in

Korea, honestly, who would have not imagine opening up a clothing business in Dongdaemun?” She

made a reference to the famous figures such as Yejin Kim, known as 400 million girl [4억소녀] who

made a major success on her on-line shopping mall as a high school student and also used to be the

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residence of the condominium we were talking about. Indeed, young people with investor’s spirit and

those who want to seek a second chance in Dongdaemun night market frequently appears as a main

storyline for trendy shows, showing the success and failure of underprivileged young people. There

are many popular narratives about young men or women, who do not have much financial or cultural

capital or who went through a major failure of life, start their life from scratch as a porters or novice

vendors and go on to start a successful apparel company.

In her essay, Kim noted that she spent many days and nights in Dongdaemun and felt the market

was like a “forest” of the endless diversions, trendy styles, and an enjoyable flow of clothes and

people.178 For my interviewees’ narratives, the market was a forest, and also was a lab. Many people

with whom I spoke with were first overwhelmed by the streets packed with people running around

and overflowing packages of clothes in the night wholesale market, but also became intrigued by the

energy and the idea of investing their time and money in this industry, as Dami commented. Success

stories often include those who were maintaining two jobs (regular paid work during the day and

nighttime wholesaling at Dongdaemun). The items in style, the quantity and turnout of items, or the

strategic interactions among various agents are all exposed visible in the shop floors. Crowds like

Dami and others indulge in their fantasy for the wealth, or even build up more speculative desires

and new possibilities of life.179

Making Garments, Making Nighttime

In the actual work of garment designers, manufacturers, and traders, their intended and unintended

performances in the 24-hour operating space produce more than the garment design concepts, the

commodities, and sales. For instance, the nature of the designers at Dongdaemun is not to simply

design the garment, but to coordinate the entire manufacturing process to the end product. The

constant mobility of the designer’s work does not allow time “gaps” in the 24-hour running of the

market: direct visiting to the fabric wholesalers, garment material shops, outsourcing stitching

factories and finishing factories nearby. Shepherding the garments from concept to sale, the

designers have intense interactions with their clothes and her work coordinating the network of

various market agents. Jiyoung, a Dongdaemun designer with a career of 9 years, commented on her

work when I followed her work all day for several times.

You see how much I carry that one item here and there. I chose the thread, buttons, and

everything and send them to the factory. I examined the original one even more in detail than

the original designer who drew the sketch. I designed it while working with people . the

market people who are really dealing with the clothes, not those who are working on the desk

of apparel company office.

Jiyoung’s comment distinguishes the design work at Dongdaemun from the conventional sense: the

face-to-face interactions with diverse agents in the garment making and the closer relationship with

the commodity. As she interprets, the frenetic lines crisscrossing the map (see my presentation slide)

are not merely lines of movement from one location to other; but rather imply the trajectories of

interaction with others and bodily movement along with the commodity that impel designers. Each

time she interacts with her counterparts, Jiyoung inputs her new ideas into the clothes, and while

178

Kim, Yejin. 2008. Babeun Gulmeodo Seutaileun Gulmjianneunda [I may starve from food, but I won't starve from

style]. Seoul: Koloseum 179

For instance, Cinderella Man (MBC 2009); Fashion King (SBS 20121); and The Birth of Family (SBS 2013).

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moving across the market, Designers and wholesalers (who are often designers of her own store) like

Jiyoung, through this work, merged in other customers and travelers, forming the crowd together.

Her passionate attachment to the clotehs and self-fulfillment happens along with the clothes she

made spread out to the world, through which Jiyoung experiences the material expansion of herself

and the commodity.

In my larger ethnography, I write about how the stitching factory workers, designers and

wholesalers make this garment work as a creative project, despite the stigma put on their work as

pirate copying and exploitative repetition. The market requires intensity in labor, imperative of fast-

paced production and circulation, and the heated competition. Their mobility, interactions and

unexpected attachment to the products and their garment skill converge keep the market viable

despite these challenges, and forge the energy and affect of the space of Dongdaemun.

Busy workers carrying, selling and buying clothes amidst noises of workers yelling back and

forth to move merchandise and haggling with customers are juxtaposed with fashionable and

energetic young people hanging around. Dongsu Go, an officer of the Information Center for Foreign

Buyers described his fascination with the market in the following way, “Whenever I feel lazy, or I

find my wife and children are complaining about life, I take them to the market to refresh our minds

by seeing the dynamic scene of people working at night.” This sort of comment is very common

amongst people describing Dongdaemun, even among the workers and in Korean colloquial

conversations. It is the presence of “people working hard during the time you are not working” that

ensures the market accessible and attractive to visit.

The possibility of dilating the urban time for activities is enabled by the presence of people

working for 24 hours; and the workers become exposed to and inspired by each other, as well. When

talking about her work selling clothes to retail customers from 10 PM to 5 AM, Shinhye Kang, a

seamstress who used to work in the retail shopping mall in Dongdaemun and now works in her own

home-based factory in Changshin-dong, said, “I feel like that I am alive, that I am working for

something important.” For Shinhye, being a part of Dongdaemun means being a part of a dynamic

working scene. Shinhye takes a walk time to time across the street just to watch the scene of young

people and foreigners working and having leisure time at night.

As in the pre-dawn prayer meetings, the overflowing people in Dongdaemun signify the growth

of the market itself. The popularity of Dongdaemun by the locals and foreigners has constantly

motivated the state to point Dongdaemun as project focus.180 It has led the church to keep it open for

24hours. Further, it has inspired many dwellers who aspire to transform their lives and make

investment to achieve both personal and monetary fulfillment. Dongdaemun is an icon for people

who want to get out of what they are doing in their career and do something fun and meaningful for

themselves at the project by Ministry of Knowledge since 2008; or for “Design City Seoul” by the

Seoul Metropolitan Government. In my manuscript I write aboutt how these are project focus more

on the consumption of the market space rather than on the development of garment design and

manufacturin in Dongdaemun. same time. “Being in the market” fosters commodity fetishsm of fast

circulation and fast accumulation and make the possibility of affluent life visible for others.

Just as in the pre-dawn prayer meetings, moreover, the size of the crowd coming to

Dongdaemun does not and cannot become the exact measurement of the actual “wealth.” They are

not merely contained, abstract number population. Their size and growth are interpreted differently

180

For instance, Dongdaemun has been appointed as one of major focus for “Future Knowledge Economy”

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and it is a matter of subject interpretation. But who they are, the fact they are there, and what they do

actually in Dongdaemun has the affective energy that spills over to the space and make connections

among people. For local people and the media, Dongdaemun has made the “working” visible and

legible, and presenting a new work-leisure ethics in the age of flexible work time. While customers,

travelers, or and crowd hang out and move across the space, they experience not only the fun, 24-run

shopping and entertainment, but also the space charged with the hard-working energy. However, as

in the pre-dawn prayer meetings, again, I see the message is conveyed not merely through the

imperative penetrating in the individual internal mind, but through the embodied performances both

of producers and consumers of the garment and of the space. Beyond the designated business hours

of shopping malls, working people are not only the producers or the dwellers of the market, but their

presence adds to the commodity value -- their imagined and physical presence are recognized,

publicized, and “felt” as a sign of vibrancy, energy, and ethical mode of being “productive” for others.

Time-Space-Body

I had still not determined and followed god back then. Four years ago I started to go to pre-

dawn prayer. My company went worse, and I got extremely nervous to an uncontrollable

level. I had no idea of doing something in that early time of the day, but I was pushed to the

corner back then and went to the nearest one from my house. Then I was shocked that many

people came out to pray that early.

Everybody was praying very hard: one was praying with tears in her eyes, one with her

voice, one with song, and one with her whole body. The scene was a pleasant shock and a

stimulus. I walked along the apartment complex after with a sister (from the church), and

realized for the first time how beautiful and valuable each building, leaf and tree, and bird is

one another. With a deep breath, with my whole body, I felt the environment and nature.

The quote has been posted in a church online community as a message for the pre-dawn prayers,

entitled, “The Dawn of My Life [내인생의 새벽].”181 The first impression the author had, “the

pleasant shock” she refers came from the encounters with others and the material experience with

being with the otherwise unrelated people. As a person who has never imagined of doing any activity

before the sunrise, being in the predawn public space and with the gestures and physicality that

expresses their passion and devotion shows the writer what it is to lead a spiritual life in a tangible

way. Her embodied experience being connected with others in the unusual time and space that feel

anew to herself, materialize and manifest the presence of faith intelligible and imaginable.

In this project, I shift from notions of the time as an abstract entity to be calculated and saved,

or of a bounded space to be divided, opened, or stretched out by new mode of accumulation.182 The

particular meanings of dark/light, night/dawn, or individual/collective configure what it is to be pious

and to be wealthy. The attention to particular ways the time and space is constructed connects to the

challenge against treating the urban processes as a mere top-down interplay of planning project or as

a backdrop of atomized subject formation. In sustaining the hope, desire and anticipation of

181 Nae Insaengeui Saebyeok. In Daka Mokjang, Neulpureun Gyohoe Dec 7, 2012.

http://egc.ch360.org/xe/dacca/9380. Accessed in May 20, 2013

182 Gallan, B., & Gibson, C. 2011. Commentary.. Environment and Planning A, 43(11): 2509-2515.

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“success,” the presence of people is at central in that processes. People here are not merely numeric

population contained in the urban time and space. The temporal spatial fabric of the nighttime space

is connected to intricate garment design, manufacturing, and selling network carried by individual

agents who merged with the crowd. Their physical presence is constitutive of the space, the affect

from their interactions and practices, and their intentional and unintentional performance of the

vitality, meanings, and signs of the 24-hour city.

Seo Young Park is Assistant Professor in Anthropology at Scripps College in the United States. Her research focuses on

gender, labor, markets, and the spatio-temporal politics of cities and East Asia. Her 2012 article on time, work, and

intimacy in Seoul’s Dongdaemun Market was published in The Journal of Korean Studies. She is currently working on a

book manuscript of an ethnographic inquiry into the lived temporality and market practices in Dongdaemun.

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Megatemples and “first-quality Buddhists (myŏngp’um pulcha)”

Buddhism toward a new social position in contemporary Korea?

Florence Galmiche

Ruhr University Bochum

This presentation addresses the contemporary ambition of Buddhist actors and institutions to redefine

and affirm their place in South Korean society. In spite of being a widespread and living tradition,

Buddhism was not a major mobilizing factor in twentieth century Korean society. In contrast to

visible and vocal Christian churches, it has even been described by both Korean and foreign

observers as a declining if not outdated religion. This situation has however changed in the mid-

1990's when Buddhism started gaining a fast growing visibility and popularity. On the basis of

ethnographical and sociological data, this paper presents how Buddhist temples in Seoul have

undertaken massive development projects and broadened their activities in order to adapt to the

population’s demands and to promote a formal religious adhesion both on individual and collective

basis. In a context of strong concurrence among religious groups, and especially between Buddhist

temples and Protestant churches, many Buddhist leaders aim at strengthening their religious

denomination by developing a more “conscious”, “proud” and “collective” affiliation among the

believers, with the explicit aim that religiously educated and socialized Buddhists would contribute

to represent Buddhism in society and subsequently to its influence. In this presentation I would like

to examine how an individual and collective identity as a Buddhist adherent is constructed and

promoted among laity in contemporary Buddhist temples. By analyzing this phenomenon, I will try

to explores the ambivalent relationship of Buddhism with the Protestant “megachurch” model and

the new positioning of temples in the affluent area of Seoul.

Before starting I would like to briefly mention an ambiguity that could arise from this topic.

Speaking about “lay Buddhism” can refer to very different groups and realities. Since the beginning

of the twentieth century, the development and promotion of lay forms of Buddhism have noticeably

been supported by lay Buddhist intellectuals concerned with the adaptation of Buddhism to

contemporary society. In most cases, their projects were also fostered by a critical questioning of

monastic institutions and by the will to reform Korean Buddhism. However, the lay Buddhists this

paper will give particular attention to, significantly differ from these movements. I am focusing here

on the “general public” of the Chogye Order temples who are constituting most of the followers

associations affiliated to temples (sindohoe). In contrast to the more “militant” lay Buddhists, they

are generally not specifically promoting lay forms of Buddhism nor willing to actively challenge

monastic authority.

Until the end of the twentieth century, formal affiliation to Buddhism was mostly concerning

the members of monastic communities and only a few devout lay believers. Most of the persons who

were attending Buddhist temples were not actively labeling themselves as “Buddhists” and the

notion of religious membership was not fully relevant to describe the forms of participation and

activities among the temples’ public. As Yoon Yee-Heum has pointed out when he was analyzing the

conditions in which surveys about religion were conducted in Korea in the 1980's: “[In contrast to]

Christians [who] can accurately be counted by a questionnaire. Buddhism shows a very high

difference between self-identified members and those who can be classified as “practical”. (…)

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“Practical” Buddhists outnumber self-identified ones by a ratio of more than two to one183.” This

discrepancy between the amount of persons taking part to Buddhist prayers and ceremonies and

those who are self-describing themselves as “Buddhist” has been described and explained by the

anthropologists who were conducting fieldwork in the early 1980's and in the 1970's. Laurel Kendall

for example has put light on the “continuum” prevailing in the religious practices of villagers : “The

women of Enduring Pine Village themselves consider seasonal offerings at the mansin’s shrine and

seasonal offerings at the Buddhist temple analogous practices. (…) The Christians stand outside the

folk religious system, but shamanism and Buddhism blur. From the perspective of women

worshipers, shrine and temple do not represent discrete religions, but rather the different traditions of

separate households184.” While Christian churches have promoted strong and visible affiliation

among the believers, participation to Buddhist rituals and ceremonies was until recently generally not

associated with claimed membership and religious identity.

This religious continuum as well as the believers' rather loose affiliation to Buddhism have

been a major target for Buddhist reformers. A key feature in the twentieth century's urban

development of Buddhism has been the emphasis placed on religious education and on the spreading

of doctrine. Among both religious and lay Buddhist reformers, the promotion of a deeper Buddhist

education and training was a priority and when the movement for the renovation and generalization

of Buddhist education among monks and nuns started in the 1980s, it played an important role in

revitalizing the Korean sangha. This movement was linked also with a strong ambition to develop

religious education and to spread the basic knowledge of Buddhist teachings among lay followers as

well185. This concern has led to a rapid multiplication of Buddhist educational programs in temples,

especially those located in Seoul. One of the main goal of this education movement has been to

regulate the prayers for worldly benefits (generally referred to as kibok 祈福, prayers for good

fortune). These widely spread prayers have crystallized many of the critics from the reformers who

have accused them of not being authentically Buddhist.

Among these “prayers for practical benefits”, the prayers for academic success and for the

“university entrance examination” are particularly at stake, especially in Kangnam. As it is well

known, university entrance examinations are a crucial matter in Korea and, at their occasion,

Protestant and Catholic churches, Buddhist temples and Shamanic shrines fill up with persons –

mostly women – praying for the academic success of their youngster relatives. The status of these

prayers is ambivalent: they are largely stigmatized as “superstitious” and “inauthentic” practices and,

at the same time, they are also welcomed and even encouraged in most temples as they constitute a

central request from the public and a major source of believers influx. Far from being a trivial matter

only pertaining to the stereotype of university entrance examinations, these prayers constitute un

crucial issue in the contemporary transformations of religious affiliation. The development of

Buddhist temples and monasteries within cities has led to an inflation of Buddhist programs offering

prayers and preparations for these examinations. In most urban Buddhist temples, prayers for

examination constitute a key concerns that find a large room in monasteries’ activities during several

months each year. Monks and laypersons involved in the temple management, take families’

183

Yoon, Yee-Heum. "The Contemporary Religious Situation in Korea." In Religion and Society in Contemporary

Korea, edited by Lewis R. Lancaster and Richard K. Payne, 1-18. Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of

California, 1997, p. 11-12. 184

Kendall, Laurel. Shamans, Housewives, and Other Restless Spirits. Women in Korean Ritual Life, Studies of the East

Asian Institute. Honolulu: Hawaii University Press, 1985, p. 83-84. 185

Taehan Pulgyo Chogyejong Kyoyugwŏn (ed.). (2005) Chogyejong sa kŭnhyondaep’yŏn (Contemporary history of the

Chogye Order), Seoul: Chogyejong ch'ulp'ansa, pp. 278-287.

134

concerns about examinations and academic achievement seriously, and most temples offer a wide

range of ceremonies, prayers and lectures related to this issue. However, Buddhist institutions are

also actively reformulating these forms of propitiatory devotion. People who pray for academic

success are urged not to “practice without knowing” and to instead study the principles and “correct”

practices of Buddhism. More broadly, in most temples, new comers are strongly encouraged to

attend religious classes for beginners in order to learn how to pray “correctly” (parŭge) as “real

Buddhists” (ch'am pulcha). As an illustration, in the Buddhist classes of the temple where I focused

my field research, an average of about 70% of the participants (200 for each session) had enrolled

explicitly in this program in order to better prepare the autumn’s university entrance examinations. In

addition, such basic course is generally only a starting point. Those who regularly attend classes

receive a certificate, and are encouraged to deepen further their Buddhist education by taking part to

various advanced programs. In the Buddhist temples of Seoul, the availability of classes has recently

and rapidly increased, ranging from introductory lectures to advanced courses in the study of sutra in

Chinese characters. Additionally, more specific courses like “Buddhism in English”, art of tea (tado),

meditation, Buddhist arts, etc. emerged as well and have acquired a large popularity. In this context,

religious and lay persons who emphasize the importance of the prayers for academic success

generally refer to their roles as a “first stage” in a process of Buddhist training and involvement, or,

in Buddhist terms, their roles as “expedient means” (bangp’yŏn 方便 (upāya)). The multiplication

and systematization of progressive courses for laity are conceptualized by Buddhist institutions as

crucial tools toward the aim of (quoting the monthly journal published by Pongŭnsa in February

2010) “transforming the common people who come to the temple with the vague thought that they

may be Buddhist, into real Buddhists”.

This stress put on the religious education of laity and the abundance of educational programs

are important characteristics of Buddhism as it is developing in South Korean cities. Religious

institutions, but also a growing number of lay believers are willing to affirm their commitment to

“well-educated” forms of religious practice. This movement toward a systematized religious

education of the public is also closely related with the development of a formal affiliation to

Buddhist institutions and the strengthening of followers associations. The emphasis put on the

doctrinal formation of believers is not only related to a quest for “orthodoxy” but has also much to do

with the concern among Buddhists to develop a collective identity and to promote Buddhism as a

form of social affiliation. When they are taking part in the educational curriculum offered by temples,

the new comers are generally encouraged to join the followers association of the temple (sindohoe)

and to participate in its various activities. Volunteers based organizations have widespread :

support association (huwŏnhoe) or followers association (sindohoe) play a key role in organizing

meetings and activities for the lay practitioners and offer material and human support to temples and

monasteries. The persons who want to actively participate in activities organized by temples are

now generally encouraged to join their sindohoe. In the case of Pongŭnsa, like in other large temples

of Seoul, a real curriculum is organized for the newcomers: everybody coming to the temple is

suggested to take the “beginners classes” (kich’o hakdang) and this program that lasts three months

is crowned by a ceremony where participants receive the five lay Buddhist precepts as well as a

Buddhist name, and are officially integrated in the sindohoe. While individual attendance of

Buddhist temples remains important, a new form of religious participation has markedly developed

within the last two decades. Buddhist institutions promote the model of a “ formally affiliated”

adherent, who participates in religious activities individually but also as a member of an association.

Among other things, this tendency can be observed through the augmentation of membership cards

for the believers which have been encouraged by both the central organization of the Chogye Order

and temples. These card tend to formalize an adhesion to the general association and also to a

“temple of affiliation”.

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Communalizing the believers is a clear priority for most of the Buddhist temples. They

emphasize these relations between practitioners in religious terms, as a mean to nourish their

motivation and deepen their devotion, but also – in a conscious way – in terms of social strategies:

the communalization of believers is also promoted to contribute to a collective Buddhist identity,

which is expected to reinforce the place of Buddhism in society.

While Buddhism appears in surveys as a majority relatively to other religions, both actors

and observers have pointed to its secondary, if not marginal, position in society. Frank Tedesco, for

example, has shed light on this seemingly paradoxical situation: “In general, Korean Buddhists do

not view themselves as an influential or prestigious force in Korean society and they have little

political clout compared to well-organized, wealthy Protestant and Catholic factions. (...)

Buddhism has low status in contemporary Korea and engaged Buddhists who work in public often

fell self-conscious and sometimes react with defiance or timidity when ostracized186.” The feeling to

be in a more or less fragile position as Buddhists is particularly present among the Buddhists of the

upper-middle class of Seoul where Protestants are in majority both in quantitative and symbolic

terms187. In this context of religious competition, many monastic and lay Buddhists have regarded the

temples of affluent districts as strategic places for spreading Buddhism among the so-called “leading

members” of society. While this strategical view is obviously not the first reason for Buddhists to

develop collective activities, it is nonetheless an explicitly very present concern in Kangnam temples.

Monastics and laity as well as the journals published by monasteries tend to emphasize how the

development of religious education and socialization among believers is crucial for improving the

image of this religion in society and for increasing its influence as a social force. In this viewpoint, in

2010, Pongŭnsa formulated one of its slogan as “Forming high-quality Buddhists through high

quality education (myŏngp’um kyoyuk ŭro myŏngp’um pulcha yangsŏng hal kŏt)” with the directly

correlated idea that these “high-quality Buddhists” should proudly represent Buddhism in society and

contribute to its new visibility188. In a competition with the neighboring active and visible Protestant

megachurches, Kangnam temples have been particularly committed in exalting a sense of confident

and extraverted belonging among their believers.

On several points, Buddhist temples are clearly reacting to the success of Protestant churches

but these relations are far from being univocal. The “megachurch model” is a very ambivalent

reference, both fascinating and repelling to the Buddhists. When it comes to the stress put by temples

on the communalization of believers and on the praise of a conscious and more vocal Buddhist

identity, the influence of the Christian techniques of believers management is significant. Adapting

forms of proselytism to the modern and urban society has been a key concern for Buddhist

institutions all along the 20th

century and this matter has been addressed in details by both monastic

and lay Buddhists. In this context, different kind of comparative studies have been undertaken.

Several temples of Seoul have even organized official “equipment study tours (sisŏl kyŏnhak)” and

“benchmarking for adherents management (sindo kwalli pench’imak’ing)” in successful churches in

order to determine what could be adapted into Buddhism. Even if megachurches are frequently and

explicitly taken as a reference, Buddhist are also very concerned with emphasizing their differences

and stressing the specific way in which they appropriate these models. In particular, they are

sensitive to differentiate and promote the Buddhist p'ogyo – claimed to be respectful of individual

186

Tedesco, Frank M. "Social Engagement in South Korean Buddhism." In Action Dharma: New Studies in Engaged

Buddhism, 152-80. London: Routledge Curzon, 2003, p. 158. 187

Cf. presentation slides.

188 P'anjŏn (Pongŭnsa monthly journal) February 2010.

136

liberty – from Christian forms of evangelizations which they frequently accuse of being aggressive.

In a broader view, this issue reflects on a significant tension existing within the current

reorganization of Buddhist temples in urban area. Most temples show an affirmed ambition to prove

their relevancy to the new South Korean society and to respond to the needs and demands of the

population. The recent development of urban temples is praised by many Buddhists individuals and

institutions but, in some occasions, the same actors may also take distance with these Buddhist types

of “megatemples”. In interviews, several Buddhists have expressed reservations toward what they

suspiciously refer to as a “church-isation (kyohoe-hwa)” of Buddhist temples. In the same way, it is

not rare that lay believers who are actively engaged in the sindohoe of a large urban temple nearby

their home both emphasize its conveniency and social role and criticize its “mundanity” and

“noisiness”, while also valuing even more a mountain temple which they can less frequently attend

but to which they express stronger attachment. In this context the place and meaning of the monastic

tradition is ambiguous. It has been regularly put into question and criticized in the name of the

opening of Buddhism to the needs and constraints of the society. In the meanwhile, ascetic

meditation monks and the traditional lifestyle of the monastic sangha enjoy an important prestige

among lay and monastic Buddhists and even outside Buddhist circles. While urban monasteries tend

to differentiate themselves more and more from a monastic lifestyle, mountain temples are getting

praised and sometimes idealized, as illustrated in the noticeable popularity met by programs offering

temporary monastic experience for laypersons.

Conclusion

The definition of what it means to be a lay Buddhist has markedly changed during the last twenty

years. In a more historical perspective, these new forms of lay participation and adhesion echo the

deep transformations that Buddhism has encountered while facing and appropriating the category of

religion in a context a religious plurality. When the neologism of “religion” (chonggyo) has been

introduced in Korea, Christian churches have been widely regarded as references of religious

organization and “modernity”. More recently, the success of megachurches has given even more

audience to the forms of adhesion and social integration that they are favoring. Buddhist institutions

have however an ambivalent relationship to these new “models”: large urban temples have more or

less explicitly embarked on religious competition by emulating megachurches but, in the same time,

they have also partly based their success on promoting different forms of religious involvement. The

priority given by temples to social integration and visibility is far from having fully eclipsed the

“out-worldly” dimension of Buddhism. Instead, this aspect of monastic Buddhism has been given

new meanings in line with the needs and concerns of urban society and its current promotion is

playing a significant role in the ongoing strengthening of Buddhism.

Florence Galmiche is Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Religious Studies (CERES) at Ruhr University Bochum in

Germany. She received her PhD in sociology at École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris, France

with a dissertation titled, La construction d’une identité religieuse bouddhiste en Corée du Sud (The Construction of a

Buddhist Religious Identity in South Korea). She has written about monastic life, environmental activism, and the

practice of prayer in South Korean Buddhism.

137

Urban Ecology of Religious Growth and Anti-Growth in Seoul

Ju Hui Judy Han

University of Toronto

Megachurches and the Intimate Public Sphere

There is a striking divergence between the geography of megachurches in the United States and

South Korea. In the US, megachurches like Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church in Southern California

enjoy success and influence on the “postsuburban fringes” of large cities, effectively fusing a

dispersed structure and “individualized spaces of intimacy” to “help interpret suburban life as

religiously meaningful and create a sense of belonging.” 189 Although megachurches have often been

derided in scholarship and popular culture as spectacularly mass-produced and ideologically

overwrought spaces of extravagance and excess, the American megachurch is now also recognized as

an innovative religious institutional form that thrives precisely because of its location in the

postsecular-postsuburban nexus. In this geography, the megachurch thrives because it is able to

produce locally articulated spaces of the sacred, connecting across the social and spatial

fragmentation of a postsuburban landscape and “transforming mundane secular spaces into arenas of

religious significance.”190

The processes of secularization and suburbanization have a particular constellation of

political geography in their operational logic, and the same can be said about the ideas of the

postsecular, the postsuburban, and the megachurch.191 In spite of the significant legacy of American

influence—Protestant political theology and institutional arrangement, not to mention military

alliance and political governance—in South Korea, megachurches in Seoul demonstrate a markedly

different dynamics of religious growth. The most glaring difference from the above discussion of the

North American case is that megachurches in Seoul are located in the urban core and not the fringes,

occupying some of the highest-priced real estate in the country.

Megachurches in Seoul

Take, for instance, Gwanglim Methodist Church in the affluent Sinsa-dong (Gangnam), located near

an upmarket residential, private educational, plastic surgery, and an upscale Apgujeong Rodeo Street

named after the shopping district on Rodeo Street in Los Angeles. The church is currently in the

process of a 66 billion Won (nearly US$59 million) expansion project, due for completion in 2013.

Other well-known megachurches including the powerful Somang Church and Jaeil Church are both

189

Justin G. Wilford Sacred Subdivisions: The Postsuburban Transformation of American Evangelicalism. New York:

New York University Press, 2012. 190

Wilford, [page number.] 191

On the postsuburbanism of Los Angeles as “a form of metropolitan transformation that redefines the urban-suburban

dichotomy and restructures the suburban pattern,” see Dana Cuff, “Los Angeles: Urban Development in the Postsuburban

Megacity.” In Megacities: Urban Form, Governance, and Sustainability, edited by André Sorensen and Junichiro Okata

(Tokyo, New York: Springer, 2011), 281. [need chapter page numbers]

138

located in the affluent Sinsa-dong, and Sarang Church in Seocho-dong in Gangnam District.

Located in nearby Yeoksam-dong also in Gangnam, Chunghyeon Church boasts a majestic,

granite exterior and ornate gothic decorations inspired by the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Its

fortress-like structure stands on an elevated foundation atop a slight hill, with the steeples soaring

above nearby buildings in an extremely high-priced area. Though there are no precise tax or legal

records available on religious assets and property in Korea, the land on which Chunghyeon Church is

built is valued at approximately 500 billion Won (US$443 million).192 Accounting for other

property holdings such as a prayer centre and cemetery in Gwangju in Gyeonggi Province, and

unspecified amount in cash reserve, conservative estimates of the church’s assets reach 1 trillion Won

(US$885 million). Moreover, Chunghyeon Church is not even among the ten largest megachurches

in Seoul—in its heyday Chunghyeon Church had reported 40,000 members in its congregation, but

the current membership is estimated to be significantly smaller. Chungheyon was perhaps best

known in the nineties because the former President Kim Young Sam had been an Elder there, but the

church’s reputation has been tarnished in part since it became known as the first major case of father-

to-son succession of megachurch leadership (세습 世襲 ) in 1997.

At least ten times the congregation size—and presumably the wealth—of Chunghyeon

Church is the famous Yoido Full Gospel Church (YFGC), reputed to be the largest congregation in

the world, and occupying a total of 2,1049 square meters (5.2 acres) in what is known as Seoul’s

main business and investment banking district and a stone’s throw from the National Assembly

Building.193 Yeoido is no Gangnam, but just as central in Seoul’s geography of wealth. With nearly

half million members attending one of seven Sunday services, it is no wonder some call YFGC “the

mother of megachurches.”194 YFGC exemplifies the marriage between the pursuit of personal and

collective growth and the drive of state-led developmentalism. Church growth experts have noted the

exponential growth of YFGC during the height of Park Chung Hee’s dictatorial rule—1,600%

growth rate in the peak decade of 1970s—as drawing heavily from postwar aspirations for

socioeconomic mobility.

YFGC itself was planted in an intensely aspirational space of Seoul, then teeming with poor

and working class migrants living in makeshift tent settlements.195 By 1970, Seoul was a “migrants’

192

“Not even God knows how much money churches have.” These estimates are from Chŏng, Nak-in. “Chaesan 1

chowon kyohwe suduruk, Chogyechongeŭn ch’oidae ttang buja.” Sisa jŏnŏl, June 5, 2012. 재산 1조원 교회 수두룩, 조계종은

최대 땅 부자 http://www.sisapress.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=60623. 193

Variety of sources including Jin-ho Kim, “‘Welbing up’a wa taehyŏngkyohoe - munhwajŏk sŏnjinhwa

hyŏnsangŭrosŏŭi hubaltaehyŏngkyohoe [The ‘Well-being Right’ and Megachurches—the latter wave of megachurches as

a product of cultural advancement]” (presented at the Han’guk posujuŭiŭi hyŏngsŏng’gwa kŭrisŭdokyo p’orŏm [The

Formation of Korean Conservatism and Christianity Forum], Seoul, Korea, 2011), 11; Yong Doo Lee, “The Analysis of

the Growth of Korean Mega-Churches and Its Application to Ministry” (Graduate School of Christian Studies, Baekseok

University, 2007); 맨주먹 천막서 일으킨 단일 세계최대 교회, The Korea Economic Daily, January 22, 2013.

http://www.hankyung.com/news/app/newsview.php?aid=2013012234467 . YFGC’s standing as the world’s largest

megachurch may include all members of its main and branch churches. In 1999, the 50,000-seat capacity auditorium of

Faith Tabernacle in Lagos, Nigeria was recorded by the Guiness Book of Records as the largest Church auditorium in the

world. 194

“World’s Biggest Congregation.” PBS Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, August 10, 2012.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2012/08/10/august-10-2012-worlds-biggest-congregation/10162/ 195

“Church of the 50,000 Faithful,” BBC News (London, November 30, 1999),

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/542154.stm.

139

city,” where those who had arrived during the last decade comprised about 50% of the population.”196

YFGC’s Pastor Reverend Yonggi David Cho, who founded the church with his mother-in-law Pastor

Ja-shil Choi in her living room in 1958, preached a compelling message of hope and deliverance

through hard work and faith in imminent prosperity.197 What they loathed as much as Communism

was poverty, and what YFGC propagated was a distinctly developmental brand of prosperity gospel,

a theology that holds that material prosperity is evidence of God’s favor. The message was that just

as one works to earn wages, one must earn God’s blessing through dedication and hard work.

YFGC’s growth was cultivated by the charismatic leaders’ ability to heal incurable illnesses and

relieve the effects of persistent poverty through prayers and miracles, and the church flourished with

both the congregants’ spiritual devotion and their financial contribution. The well-being and

prosperity of the church and the congregation, in other words, became discursively and financially

intertwined, and YFGC built its base on a political theology of unfettered growth and prosperity that

not only resonated with the aspirations of the urban poor, but also progressed in lockstep with the

intensely militaristic mobilization for national economic growth.198

Yoido Full Gospel Church’s now emeritus pastor David Yonggi Cho continues to command

celebrity stature as the most successful pastor at the most successful church. He was even nominated

for the Nobel Peace Prize in earlier in 2013 by the Christian Council of Korea (CCK), a national

representative body of conservative evangelical Christians in Korea.199 A great deal of allegations

and legal trouble, however, has clouded Cho’s reputation in recent years.200 A well-publicized feud

between Cho and YFGC’s own Council of Elders subsequently led to a purge of the twenty-eight

Elders who accused Cho and his family of misconduct, and the church leadership drew wide

criticism from its handling of labor dispute at YFGC-owned Kukmin Ilbo, a Christian-identified

newspaper that sought editorial independence even while remaining financially dependent on the

church.201 For many years, critics have accused Cho and his family of using illicit measures to

purchase and sell church property and in the process diverting the profit and essentially converting

church assets into private ownership.202 As the history of spectacular church growth can not be

196

“Population Change and Development in Korea,” Asia Society, n.d., http://asiasociety.org/countries/population-

change-and-development-korea. “In the 1960s, a massive flight of farmers to cities was caused mainly by poverty in rural

areas, and the proportion of the urban population increased from 28% to 41% between 1960 and 1970. The primary

destination of these migrants was Seoul. From 1960 to 1965, about 5% of the rural population left for the cities, 70% of

whom headed for Seoul; from 1965 to 1970, 13.6% left for the cities, 61% of whom went to Seoul.” 197

Though less well-known than her famous son-in-law Yonggi Cho, Rev. Choi Ja-Shil was an influential religious

leader who served as a pastor at YFGC until her death in 1989. 198

See Seungsook Moon, Militarized Modernity and Gendered Citizenship in South Korea (Durham: Duke University

Press, 2005). 199

The news of the nomination was generally not received well, especially given the pending criminal charges against

Cho. See 생뚱맞은 조용기 노벨평화상 추천 http://www.hani.co.kr/arti/society/religious/569000.html 200

As of June 2013, Rev. Cho and his two sons are under indictment for breach of trust losses and tax evasion. The elder

son Cho Hui-jun was previously found guilty in 2001 for embezzlement and tax evasion and sentenced to 3 years

imprisonment and 5 years probation. 조용기 목사 3부자, 배임 혐의로 모두 법정에

http://news.hankooki.com/lpage/society/201306/h2013061003322521950.htm 201

조용기 목사 고소한 장로들 무더기 징계 , 뉴스앤조이, March 13, 2013.

http://www.newsnjoy.or.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=193620 ; Kim, Kyu-nam. “Yoido Full Gospel Church purges

elders who blew whistle on founder.” The Hankyoreh, March 15, 2013.

http://www.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/578213.html. 202

"조용기 목사, 교회 재산 사유화 해명해야" http://www.newspower.co.kr/sub_read.html?uid=19857

140

understood apart from the history of church construction—“church planting” in evangelical

parlance—taking place amidst Seoul’s speculative real estate development, YFGC and other

megachurches’ financial transactions point to the continuing significance of the political economy of

religious aspirations.

“If you build it, they will come”

The Protestant penchant for real estate development and property ownership is reflected in the 2011

survey of religion conducted by the South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism that

shows Protestants in operation of 77,966 facilities nationwide. In contrast, Buddhist-run facilities

were a mere third of that number despite comparable number of adherents, and Catholics holding a

meager 1,609 facilities nationwide.203 Though beyond the scope of this paper, it is also worth noting

that the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism owns land that put together constitutes an area larger than

the City of Seoul, making it the largest landowner second only to the South Korean state.204

“If you build it, they will come” is what a church architect said during an interview—and if

one builds a larger church, more will come. 205 Church construction is a risky venture for

congregations, mortgage lenders, and investors alike. A lender with a history of financing church

development projects has stated that he has developed a lending formula to consider not only the

market value of the church building as collateral, but also an assessment of the investment-

worthiness based on the size of church membership, degree of intensity of faithfulness, and the

weekly volume of church donations.”206 It is a speculative process of investment, in other words,

that combines material and ideational valuation in calculating risk and profit.

At Sarang Church, Pastor Oh Jung Hyun has reversed the pledge of the founding pastor who

had promised to limit church growth, and announced in 2010 that they have outgrown their current

building and began a 210 billion Won (US$ 186 million) construction project on one of the most

expensive real estate in the affluent Seocho-dong of Gangnam District. The construction project has

received much media coverage since the announcement, first for being permitted to build where no

one previously had been allowed to build, secondly for being permitted to close off a stretch of

public road indefinitely for a private construction project, and thirdly for being permitted to bring a

subway exit directly into the church. By the end of 2013, Sarang Church will boast its lavish new

complex with entrances directly from the Seoul Metro station. This is a construction project that

would have been impossible without close collaboration with a variety of municipal governments.

203

Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. http://www.mcst.go.kr/web/dataCourt/reportData/reportView.jsp?pSeq=588 204

This is not entirely surprising given the incomparably longer history of Buddhism in Korea. “<시사저널>은 2008년 5월

13일자에 조계종이 소유한 사찰 땅 3만3058㎡(1만평) 이상의 임야를 소유한 사찰을 최초로 공개했다. 당시 조계종이 소유한 임야 면적은 7

억7798만㎡(2억3534만평)나 됐다. 제주도(18억472만㎡)의 절반에 조금 못 미치고, 서울시(6억552㎡)보다 넓다. 공시지가로 4975억원쯤 됐

다. 시가로 따지면 1조원이 훨씬 넘는다. 서울 여의도보다 넓은 임야를 소유하고 있는 사찰은 강원도 오대산 월정사 외에 19곳이나 된다. 지

금도 부동산 소유권의 변동이 크게 변한 것은 없다.” Sisa Journal, June 5, 2013.

http://www.sisapress.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=60623 205

Anonymous interview in Seoul, July 2012. 206

This will be addressed in more detail in the next phase of research on urban geography of religion. “‘Kyohoe taech’ul

sae pŭllŭoshyŏnŭro ilban ŭnhaeng’gwa ch’apyŏlhwa sŏng’gong’ [Church lending as market leader, successful above

general banks in competition],” MK News (Seoul, April 30, 2008),

http://news.mk.co.kr/newsRead.php?year=2008&no=272699.

141

Tellingly, the new Sarang Church site was previously known as the site of an urban squatter

settlement, with heated contestations between land speculators and developers and low-income

residents of informal settlements. This is where the City of Seoul had forcibly evicted and displaced

2,400 households from the “Flower Village” informal settlement for the first time in 1992 to “protect

the property rights of private landlords, not for the purposes of public housing development.”207

Then an elected member of the Parliament and former CEO of Hyundai Construction was one of the

largest landowners involved in the mass eviction and redevelopment—Lee Myung Bak, who later

became the mayor of Seoul and the first born-again evangelical Christian President of South Korea.

Perpetual leadership and father-son property inheritance

While the growth of megachurches in the 1960s had relied on a political theology that rewarded the

faithful with divine blessings and state commendations, it also produced distinct institutional

configurations of Korean Protestant churches. Whereas each national denomination would typically

dispatch clergy to serve a local congregation, mega-congregations exceed the denominations to

which they belong and they outweigh denominational authority in institutional, political, and

financial matters.208 Many founding pastors of growing churches began to maintain their leadership

over several decades, often remaining in power de facto as emeritus pastors long after retirement.

This pattern of strong and perpetual leadership persists to this day, not unlike, as some point out, the

patriarchal family-run conglomerate chaebŏls or the 18-year regime of Park Chung Hee (1961-1979)

in the South and 46-year reign of Kim Il Sung (1948-1994) in the North.209

Related to the long tenure is the controversial practice for sons to inherit their fathers’

position as the lead pastor of a church. In many cases, this transition accompanies not only the

coveted leadership status but also enormous financial assets associated with the church. This is not

unique to Korea. “Handing down leadership from founding father to son is common in the world of

celebrity ministry leadership,” reported The New York Times in discussing the bankruptcy case of

Crystal Cathedral in southern California, adding that “[t]he offspring of Billy Graham, Oral Roberts,

Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell have all inherited pieces of their father’s empires.”210 In Korea,

what critics describe as “dynastic” father-son succession have taken place in many of the

megachurches in Gangnam including Chunghyeon Church, Gwanglim Methodist Church, and

Somang Prebyterian Church. Insofar as inheritance systems are crucial opportunities for the transfer

of accumulated physical capital—and in the case of megachurches, also religious capital—they are

also regulated by cultural norms and power differentials. The practice of inheritance in the

megachurch context, therefore, reinscribes the power-laden social and property relations.

207

“Sŏch’odong Kkotmaŭlŭi Chijutŭl [The landlords of ‘Flower Village’ in Seocho-dong],” Gil [The Road], November

1992. 208

This pattern was dominant especially in the Presbyterian church, but also true for Methodist and even Episcopalian

denominations. Cite Yi Man-Yŏl and Pak Jong-hyŏn. 209

Church historians and theologians Pak Jong-hyŏn and Kim Ji-ho frequently make this point. 210

“Dispute Over Succession Clouds Megachurch,” The New York Times (New York City, NY, October 23, 2010), New

York edition, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/us/24cathedral.html.

142

Microchurches and the churchless

“If the megachurch is Budweiser, the house church is a microbrew.”211

Something, however, is amiss in the narrative of growth discussed thus far in this paper. As much as

the megachurches wield considerable political and financial power, the fact remains that churches do

not all grow into megachurches. The majority of Protestant churches in Korea are in fact small to

medium-size, with nearly 80% of churches in Korea struggling to stay afloat with 50 to 200 members

in each congregation.212 Church failure is widespread and commonplace, as it is evident in the over a

thousand churches nationwide that closed down in 2010 alone.213 With unseemly scandals and power

struggles plaguing several well-established megachurches, theologians and church historians are

questioning whether the trajectory of church growth itself is ethically and theologically sound.214 As

small to medium-size churches struggle to survive in a competitive marketplace, they are calling for

megachurch reform with demands such as: stop operating shuttle buses that transport churchgoers far

away from their place of residence (where there are plenty of local churches that would welcome

them); stop franchising and setting up satellite churches; and stop the financial drain associated with

church construction projects and redirect the resources towards community service and mission

activities. Critical church leaders have advocated for self-consciously small local churches as an

oppositional anti-growth movement to counter the megachurch model. Some of this no doubt derives

its message from the resurgence of the local—eat local, shop local, and perhaps worship local—but

locally embedded microchurches are largely a product of old minjung church in the 1970s and 80s or

liberation theology in Korea, and subscribe to a theology of church growth different from those of

the megachurches.215

The emergent effort that self-consciously refuses growth and resists expansion can be seen in

both the US and South Korea. Opting to stay small, these microchurches—including churchless

churches without buildings they own, “organic churches,” house churches, or simply described as

very small congregations—are reportedly one of the fastest growing forms of worship in the US.

211

“House of Worship: Finding Spirituality at Home,” Newsweek, January 10, 2010. 212

Need to verify numbers. Sang-bong Han, “Ilsangŭl chŏnjaengt’ŏro mandŭnŭn chong’gyo, ‘ijenŭn chakŭnkyohoeda’

[Religion turning everyday into a battlefield, ‘now is the time for small churches’],” Kat’olic Nyusŭ Chigŭmyŏgi

[Catholic News Here and Now] (Seoul, January 4, 2012),

http://www.catholicnews.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=6496. 213

Ibid. Also see대형교회, 한국의 또 다른 재벌이 아닌가, Bulgyo Focus, November 30, 2011.

http://www.bulgyofocus.net/news/articleView.html?idxno=64423. According to article, several churches carry enormous

debt: 새문안교회 20.8 billion Won (US$18.4 million), 지구촌교회 18.9 billion Won (US$ 16.8 million), 새에덴교회 14.4 billion Won (US$12.8

million), 주안장로교회 13 billion Won (US$11.5 million), 안산동산교회 33.8 billion Won (US$ 29.9 million), 인천숭의교회 10.8 million Won (US$9.6

million), 온누리교회 9.1 billion Won (US$ 8 million), and 예수소망교회 8 billion Won (US$ 7 million). 214

Work through the major arguments from the three megachurch books—Shin, Gwang-eun. Megach’ŏch’i nonbak

[Refuting the megachurch]. Seoul, Korea: Jeongyeon, 2009; Yi, Kye-sŏn. Taehyŏng kyohoega manghaeya han’guk

kyohoega sanda [Megachurches must die for Korean churches to live]. Tŭlsori, 2009; and Kim, Son-ju. Han’guk

kyohoeŭi ilgop kaji choeak [The Seven Sins of the Korean Church]. Seoul, Korea: Samin, 2009. 215

“Ilsangŭl chŏnjaengt’ŏro mandŭnŭn chong’gyo, ‘ijenŭn chakŭnkyohoeda’ [Religion turning everyday into a

battlefield, ‘now is the time for small churches’].”

143

Microchurches appeal precisely to people who seek the intimacy of a “spiritual family” and a very

active faith, rather than settling for a heavily orchestrated event on Sunday morning that “reduces

them to spectators in the audience.” 216 In Korea, however, microchurches face significant financial

challenges in volatile rental market. In December 2010, five pastors went on a hunger strike to call

attention to the plight of small churches in redeveloping areas. Their press materials called

redevelopment as a “death sentence,” and claimed that as many as one-fifth of all churches in Korea

will be destroyed by urban redevelopment.217 It is no surprise that the small churches tend to serve

the poor, the working class, feminists, and queers—populations disenfranchised and marginalized in

a range of social, political, and economic geography of Seoul.

People attend churches for different reasons, and reasons for attending include not only faith

and devotion, but also social demographics such as gender, age, and occupation, social networks, and

activities offered. Sarang Church, for example, is known as the best for young, straight-identified

singles serious about marriage, and their Sunday program is full of birth announcements and baby

photos every week. Samil Church is the happening place for young, energetics twentysomethings in

college or freshly graduated, but Yoido Full Gospel Church is where you visit with your great aunt.

Chunghyeon Church is where you take international visitors to impress them with its opulent gothic

architecture, and Somang Church is the evangelical political epicenter where one can see personal

drivers standing by in a Mercedes while their employers worship inside. Like brands, churches have

differentiated identities and reputations.

To be sure, there are a lot of different kinds of churches. There are mega-megachurches,

megachurches, large churches, and the rest may be classified as medium-size, small, and extremely

small. People gather for worship and fellowship in storefront churches (always upstairs and never

street-level), basement churches, and in private living rooms. Sunday is also a busy work day for the

hundreds of thousands of people employed by the church, and those who volunteer their labor by

helping in the kitchen or cleaning up afterwards. People sometimes shop around for years for the

“right church,” and congregations often splinter over issues of personnel and property management.

How does the size of the church matter? Why and how do some people end up rising through the

church ranks and become deacons and elders at an affluent megachurch in Seoul while others quietly

give tithe for decades without recognition? Why and how do some women spend their only day off

by boiling noodles in hot kitchens and washing the dishes for hours every Sunday while other

women go out to lunch at a nearby café to gossip with old friends?218

Church failure is widespread and commonplace, and apparently, over a thousand churches

nationwide closed down in 2010 alone. With megachurches growing and expanding their reach,

small mom-and-pop churches are losing their footing in many of the neighborhoods. Many start-up

microchurches are renters, not property owners, and most do not survive when evicted and displaced

from its local community. This places small churches in the same predicament as small businesses

and renters facing a similar fate, and it is no surprise that the issues of urban redevelopment and

attendant displacement have brought struggling churches and urban residents together in demanding

216

“House of Worship: Finding Spirituality at Home.” 217

The situation is said to be particularly dire in New Town development on the periphery of Seoul, in places like

Gimpo, Incheon, and Bucheon. “‘Posu’ Sŏ Kyŏng-sŏk moksa ‘Chŏngshin motch’arin chŏngbu, taesŏnesŏ poja’,”

Pressian (Seoul, Korea, February 24, 2011),

http://www.pressian.com/article/article.asp?article_num=60110224161302&section=03. 218

On gender politics in South Korean evangelical churches, see Kelly H. Chong, Deliverance and Submission:

Evangelical Women and the Negotiation of Patriarchy in South Korea (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press,

2008).

144

more fair relocation compensation and participatory urban planning. This is not always because the

churches speak for the poor—but because churches themselves are poor.

Conclusions (in progress)

Seoul’s megachurches suggest a reorientation of theorizing localized aspirations divergent especially

from the American case. The question is, as Peter van der Veer asks, quoting Arjun Appadurai, what

produces a locality in “a world where spatial localization, quotidian interaction, and social scale are

not always isomorphic”?219 Whereas the American megachurch may represent a new expansion of

the private sphere, the Korean megachurch asserts a new public centre where a sense of belonging is

tied to aspirations for social mobility and associational power, enabled by a political theology that

equates growth with success. It is also inseparable from the urban ecology of speculative investment

and profits of construction.

Church growth is inextricably tied to narratives of economic growth and prosperity, both in

discourse and practice. Salient here is what Lauren Berlant has described as an “intimate public

sphere,” in which intimacy “involves an aspiration for a narrative about something shared, a story

about both oneself and others that will turn out in a particular way.”220 Like in the case of American

megachurches, the operational narrative about megachurches in Korea rely on “modes of attachment

that make persons public and collective and that make collective scenes intimate spaces.”221

The megachurch/microchurch research underscores the importance of the interplay between

religious and developmental aspirations in Seoul, a city under perpetual construction. Not only is the

urban infrastructure constantly being developed and expanded, but also with every new development

and expansion project, we see contested processes of dispossession, displacement, and relocation.

Churches are not immune from dynamics of urban development and gentrification, and there is

heightened attention to the predicament of small churches that are not financially viable long-term.

Many start-up microchurches are renters, not property owners, and most do not survive the eviction

and displacement from the local community. This places small churches in the same predicament as

small businesses and renters facing a similar fate, and it is no surprise that the issues of urban

redevelopment and attendant displacement have brought struggling churches and urban residents

together in demanding more fair relocation compensation and participatory urban planning.

Taking the concept of “urban aspirations” as pointing to both the ideational character and

material manifestation of religious practices, this paper points to the critical significance of

investigating the dynamics of poverty and prosperity as reflected in the divergent trajectories of

megachurch constructions and microchurch formations, and trace how church growth relates to

urban development and movements for social justice.

Ju Hui Judy Han is Assistant Professor in Geography at the University of Toronto in Canada. Her research has

examined missionary mobilities, evangelical capitalism, and the transnational political economy of English. Her current

research focuses on church growth and urban poverty, moral economies of religious property and construction financing,

and cultivation of political homophobia. Her publications have discussed custodial politics of missionary rescue,

219

Peter van der Veer, preliminary draft of “Introduction,” in Urban Aspirations in Asia (Berkeley: University of

California Press, forthcoming), quoting Arjun Appadurai, Modernity At Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, 1st

ed. (London: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 188. 220

Lauren Berlant. “Intimacy: A Special Issue.” Critical Inquiry 24, no. 2 (1998): 281–288. 221

Berlant. 288.

145

intersubjectivity and ethnography, evangelical developmentalism, and missionary geoscience of racial difference and

cultural distance. She is currently completing a book manuscript concerning Korean/American evangelical missionaries

engaged in religious, humanitarian, and development projects throughout the world

146

PANEL 5:

Spatial Configuration of Migrant Muslim’s Everyday life in Seoul

This panel aims to understand general background and possible methodologies for the study of

Muslim migrants’ life in Seoul’s urban cultural configuration. Religious reference offers, for many

cases of migrants, the occasion of regroupment and base of economic & identity strategy in their

relatively unstable life in migration. As Islam being a relatively strong factor of regroupment for

Muslims who have different regulation of practice in the general environment of Korea, organization

of time-space for their everyday life can be particularly difficulty. And this difficulty exists not only

for migrant Muslims but also for Korean Muslims. Sometimes organization of time-space minding

their religious identity can be even more problematic for Korean Muslims when the pre-supposition

of Korean (and Seoul’s) everyday life does not accept enough of ‘cultural diversity’. This panel treats

this problematic of everyday life organization to better understand possible 'cultural cityscape' related

with religious life of Seoulites.

Chair: Han, Geun-Soo (Kangwon University)

Discussant: Kim, Hyung-jun (Kangwon University)

147

Muslim Communities in Korea:

Focusing on the characteristics of various Groups Oh, Chong-Jin

Hankuk University of Foreign Studies

I. Introduction

Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world in 20th

and 21th

century. Among every four humans

in the world, one of them is Muslim. Muslims have increased by over 235 percent in the last fifty

years up to nearly 1.6 billion. By comparison, Christians have increased by only 47 percent,

Hinduism, 117 percent, and Buddhism by 63 percent.222 Islam is regarded as the second largest

religious group in France, Great Britain and USA. Muslim population in Asia is around one billion

and is about 30% of Asian total population. It is expected that Muslim population in Asia will rapidly

increase than any other religion.

Korea was traditionally Confucianistic and Buddhistic society until 1950, when the Korean War

broke. Especially after the 1970s, when Korea was developing rapidly in the economic field, many

Korean construction workers and businessmen had a chance to contact Muslims in the Middle East.

In other words, Korea had a so-called, ‘Middle East Boom’ during the 1970s, which eventually led to

frequent contacts with the Muslims in the Middle East. Moreover after the mid-1980s when the

Korean economic development was at the high peak, many Muslim immigrant workers came to

Korea due to the labor shortage in Korea. Korea became the attractive place for the immigrant

workers who seek for a better life in 2000. Also globalization and a growing internationalization of

the Korean society made many foreign brides and students to head Korea for their dream.

Considering the mentioned above, this paper aims to explore and elaborate the trend and

development of Foreign Muslim communities in Korea. This work will show the situation of Muslim

immigrants as workers, brides and students in Korea

II. Foreign Muslim Communities in the Korean Society

Korea's long history of being a homogeneous nation is facing a rapid change as Korea is fast

becoming a multi-ethnic society with a growing number of foreign migrant workers, international

students, and inter-racial marriages. Nowadays, it is easy to see foreign communities scattered

around the Seoul metropolitan area and outside the capital. There is even a prime time talk show

solely dedicated to what foreign residents in Korea think about the country. With the growing

number of foreign brides, migrant workers and foreign students, the number of foreign residents

exceeded the 1 million mark as of August 2007. Considering that the number stood at a mere 40,000

in 1990, it is truly a dramatic change.

Although multi-cultural Korean society is the important topic of growing debate in the Korean

society, there is a big lackness that deals on the muslim community or immigrant in Korea.

According to immigration office data, among 1 million foreign immigrants in Korea, there are an

222 http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/rel_isl_pop-religion-islam-population ;

http://www.islamicweb.com/begin/results.htm

148

estimated 104,427 Muslims living in Korea, occupying about 10% of foreign residents. Considering

the high birth rates among muslim immigrants and stagnated birth rates of Koreans, it is worthwhile

to investigate muslim communities in Korea. Perhaps, it is the right time to research on Muslim

immigrants in Korean society.

Considering the mentioned above, this paper focuses on the current situation of Muslim

Immigrants in Korea. To investigate and to collect data from various muslim groups in Korea, this

paper divided the Korean Muslim immigrants into five categories; Arab Muslims, non Arab Middle

East Muslims, Central Asian Muslims, South Asian Muslims, and South East Asian Muslims. In

order to outline the Muslim communities in Korea, this paper has employed various statistic data as

qualitative method. By doing so, this paper can investigate not only the general situation of the

Korean Muslim immigrants but also explores their adaptation in the Korean community.

1. Muslim Immigrants in Korea

Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world. Today there are increasing numbers of Muslim

immigrant communities around the world. In the same vein, Muslim community in Korea is also

growing fast, reaching up to over 100,000 in 2008. According to the analysis of the immigration

office data, there are 104,427 Muslim immigrants in Korea, which includes illegal immigrants. Also

Korea Muslim Federation estimates that there are about 110 thousand foreign Muslims in Korea.

Exact figure of Muslim immigrants are impossible to estimate due to illegal immigrants. Illegal ratio

among Muslim immigrants is 36%, which is relatively high considering the average illegal ratio

(20%) of foreign immigrants.

As seen in Table below South Asian Muslims, generally Pakistani and Bangladeshi, dominates

the biggest Muslim group in Korea. Indonesian and Malaysian who dominates South East Asian

Muslims follow behind the South Asian Muslims. The third biggest muslim communities are formed

by Uzbek, Kazak, and Kyrgyz from Central Asia. Thus, these three major Muslim groups, South

Asian, South East Asian, and Central Asian Muslims, dominates more than 90 percent of Muslims in

Korea. Arab Muslims and Non-Arab Muslims (Turkish and Iranian in general) are only around 3-4

thousand in Korea. This is because of geographical and social distance between Korea and these

countries. In other words, geographical advantages and social proximity of Central Asia, South Asia,

South East Asia between Korea made Muslims from these regions to be the biggest muslim groups in

Korea. Many Turkish and Arab migrant workers argue that travel expense to Korea is more

expensive than to Europe, which makes Korea less favorite destination for working. Moreover,

emotional and social distance they feel toward Korea also plays important role when they are

deciding to emigrate. They tend to have more close social and emotional network toward Europe,

which made them to have a tendency to emigrate to Europe than Far East, Korea. It was just right

after when Kore hosted 2002 World Cup Game, one of the world best sports events, when Arab and

Non-Arab Muslims started to get interested for their working destination. Truly, the booming

economy of Korea right after the World Cup game has made many foreign workers and students to

head Korea for their future dream.

149

Muslim Communities in Korea (2007)

Muslims in Korea Total Muslim

Immigrants

Legal

Immigrants

Illegal

Immigrants

Illegal

Ratio

Total Muslim

immigrants 104,427 74,062 30,365 36%

Arab Muslims 2,828 2,154 674 23%

Non-Arab Muslims

(Turkey, Iran)

3,814 2,276 1,538 40%

Central Asian Muslims 20,327 15,283 5044 24%

South Asian Muslims 42,623 25,853 16,770 39%

South East Asian

Muslims 34,835 28,496 6,339 18%

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Muslim Communities in Korea (2009)

Total

Immigrants Muslims in Korea

Total Muslim

Immigrants Percentage

1,164,166

Total Muslim

immigrants 79,388 100%

Arab Muslims 3,119 2.8%

Non-Arab Muslims

(Turkey, Iran)

2,237 3.9%

Central Asian Muslims 21,831 27.5%

South Asian Muslims 21,325 26.9%

South East Asian

Muslims 29,679 37.4%

Others 1,198 1.5%

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2. Muslim Immigrants as Worker

Among these Muslim immigrants seven out of ten immigrants are migrant workers. In other words,

we can say that the Korea's Muslim society grew with the arrivals of migrant workers since mid

1980s. Especially, foreign muslims came to Korea as laborers, businessman, and students etc. and

increased after 1988 when Olympic Games were held(Kim 2008: 171). These migrant workers

occupied the so-called 3-D (dirty, difficult and dangerous) job sector in Korea. In other words,

150

migrant workers become as the major labor force in a small and mid-sized businesses in Korea. In all

Muslim communities, migrant workers occupies around 60 percent of its communities. In case of

Central Asian Muslims, mainly Uzbek and Kazak, and South Asian Muslims, mainly Pakistani and

Bangladeshi, 80 percent of their residents are migrant workers.

Korea actually used export of labor in the 1970s and 1980s as one way of developing the

resources needed for its own economic take-off. But the success of the export-led growth strategy

quickly used up available domestic labor reserves. In addition economic growth, as in other

industrial countries, was accompanied by declining fertility. It was inevitable that import of labor

would be needed to sustain economic growth. Korea introduced the ‘Industrial Trainee System’(ITS)

in 1994 as a disguised framework for the import of low-skilled labor. Among different Muslim

groups Muslims workers from Central Asia (mostly from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan),

South East Asia (mostly from Indonesia), South Asia (mostly from Pakistan and Bangladesh) only

had a chance to work in Korea through this Industrial Trainee System. Due to this program Muslim

migrant workers from Central Asia, South East Asia and South Asia became a major labor force

from muslim countries. This ITS program gave them easier access to Korea, playing a critical role

bridging between their countries and Korea. However, 'trainees' did not enjoy the legal rights of

workers and were paid below the minimum wage. In a situation of labor scarcity, trainees left their

posts and found irregular work, with better pay and conditions. Actually this is reason why, there are

many illegal muslim workers in Korea. To a certain extent, ITS program induced legal workers to

illegal wokers. By December 2006 there were officially estimated to be 289,239 undocumented

migrants (2006 Immigration office Statistics data: 2006 Chul-ip-guk Gal-ri Tong-gae-yeon-bo). In

response, the Korean Government introduced the Employment Permit System(EPS) and phased out

the trainee system. However, it seems that results are almost similar between them. The EPS is

designed to prevent long-term settlement by requiring workers to rotate and by prohibiting family

entry. Its basic idea was to ensure ‘'rotation’' by recruiting workers for a limited period, restricting

their rights and minimising family reunion. Migrants were expected to accept relatively poor wages

and conditions, make little demand on social infrastructure and not to get involved in labor struggles.

In conditions of strong labor demand, it was hard to sustain such principles. Employers wanted to

keep on good workers, and family reunion soon started through the practice of recruiting wives or

husbands of existing migrants as workers. They joined the workforce, but once families were re-

united the birth of children and long-term settlement were inevitable. At any rate, ITS and EPS

program played as a gateway role for Muslim from Central Asia, South Asia, and South East Asia to

work in Korea.

Legal Muslim Immigrants According to Occupation (2007)

Total Legal

Residence Students Migrant

Worker

Marriage

Immigrant Business

Total Sex

Arab Muslims 2,154

M:1,772

F:382

93 1116

77

M:58/F:19

270

M:82% /

F:18%

Ratio:

4.3% Ratio: 51.8% Ratio: 3.6%

Ratio:

12.5%

Non-Arab Muslims 979

M:858

F: 121

91 567

92

M:85/F:7

70

151

M:88% /

F:12%

Ratio:

9.2% Ratio: 58% Ratio: 9.3%

Ratio:

7.1%

Central Asian

Muslims 14,264

M: 11,339

F: 2,915

460 11,354

1,515

M:44/F:1,471

269

M:80% /

F:20%

Ratio:

3.2% Ratio: 79.5% Ratio: 10.6%

Ratio:

1.8%

South Asian

Muslims 25,853

M:24,988

F:865

422 14,550

967

M:936/F:31

691

M:97% /

F:3%

Ratio:

1.6% Ratio: 56.3% Ratio: 3.7%

Ratio:

2.7%

South East Asian

Muslims 28,463

M:23,400

F:5,063

575 23,371

422

M:44/F:378

190

M:82% /

F:18% Ratio: 2% Ratio: 82% Ratio: 1.5%

Ratio:

0.7%

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ggaaee--yyeeoonn--bboo..

3. Muslim Foreign Brides and Students

Another segment of immigrants is taken up by foreign brides and students in Korea. It is estimated

that 38,000 Koreans married foreigners in 2007, accounting for about 11 percent of all marriages that

year. Korea had 260,000 immigrants through interracial marriages, as of 2007(Kuki News,

05.sept.2007). The percentage of international marriages were particularly high in industrial suburbs,

where large concentrations of foreign-born migrant workers reside, and rural communities, where

demographic forces are forcing rural men to "import" brides from abroad. The numbers are, in a

word, shocking. In 2005, 22 provincial cities and counties recorded international marriage rates of

over 30 percent. One rural county, Boeun-gun in Chungcheongbuk-do, became the first in the

country to record an international marriage rate of 40 percent; of 205 marriages registered there, 82

were international unions (Joongang Ilbo 08.Sept.2008). Nationwide, 35.7 percent of all marriages

that were recorded in rural communities in 2007 were international marriages, over half of which

were between Korean men and Vietnamese women (ibid.).

152

Growth of Muslim Marriage Immigrants in Korea (2002-2009)

Such trend is also affecting Muslim communities as well. Although marriage immigrants

occupies less then 10 percent of total muslim population it is steadily growing. Particularly, Muslims

from Central Asia show prominent increase among other Muslims. Moreover, while marriages

between Korean women and Muslim men dominates the most cases in other Muslim groups, in

Central Asian cases, many Korean men married to Central Asian women. In case of Central Asia,

interracial marriage was particularly prominent among mid aged (generally in his 40s) Korean men

in rural or industrial area, who had hard time finding spouses. There was even matchmaking

companies or marriage brokers who were finding Central Asian women for Korean men. This

phenomenon is quite rare in other Muslim groups. Due to the Soviet experiences, many Central

Asians became nominal Muslim, which made them relatively free from religious bindings. For

instance, according to the survey and interviews during the research, over 90 percent of Central

Asians (Uzbek, Kazak, Kygrgyz), both male and female, would be open to the idea of marrying a

non Muslim foreigner. Their openness and flexibility toward Islam played a crucial role in this

process.

Likewise, foreign muslim students were also dramatically increasing in Korea these days.

According to the Korean Herald report, the Education Ministry unveiled a set of plans to double its

number of foreign students in Korea to 100,000 by 2012(Korea Herald, 08.Aug. 2008). The

government revised the aim of its so-called "Study Korea" project, initially devised in 2004, as the

number of foreign students in Korea passed 50,000 last year, three years ahead of its original target.

Nearly 55,000 foreign students were studying in Korea in April of 2008(ibid.) The ministry said it

will focus on attracting students from countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Kazakhstan and

Azerbaijan, which have great interest in Korea(ibid.). What is important here is that these countries

are all Muslim states. Recently many foreign students were dominated by Chinese, Japanese,

Vietnamese, etc. However, with the Korean government's warm approach to the resource rich

muslim countries, students from Islamic countries is likely to increase far faster than before.

Moreover, many Muslim countries has a positive and good image of Korea, as a high-tech country.

Thus, many muslim students in Korea contend that Korea is an attractive destination for their studies.

Besides, Korea doesn't have negative image as an imperialistic like many western countries.

Female

Male

153

These Muslim foreign students are expected to find better chances of locating job opportunities

in Korea, as rules will be eased for student visa holders. The Korean government started to see

foreigners graduating from Korean universities as a potential driving force for the country, helping

counter low fertility rates and rapid population ageing. The Education ministry currently allowed

foreign students to sojourn in Korea for a certain period after earning a Korean graduate degree, so

that they may search for employment. The Korean government also encouraged universities and

industries to develop collaborated internship programs for foreign students.

Now in most regards a developed state, Korea is like other developed states around the world

becoming an increasingly attractive destination for immigrants looking to make for themselves a

better life. Another major factor, however, is Korea's low birthrate. Korea's birthrate hit a record low

of 1.08 in 2005, according to the OECD. Accordingly, Korea's population is expected to shrink from

its current 48 million to 40 million by 2050. Bluntly speaking, there are not enough bodies to do the

work of keeping Korea Inc. operating at maximum efficiency.

Mosques in Major Korean Cities

III. Conclusion

In Korea, the spreading of Islam is relatively slow because Korean generally insists to adhere to their

tradition. In spite of slow increasing of Korean Muslims, some Korean Muslims said that the future

of Islam in Korea seems to be positive because of the full freedom of all kinds of religious activities

guaranteed by the Korean constitution and friendly relations between Korea and Islamic Worlds

nowadays. Additionally, the number of foreign muslims are now increasing day by day. Muslim

community in Korea is also growing fast, reaching up to over 100,000 in 2008.

154

Korea has for some time taken pride in its claims to be one of the world's few ethnically

homogeneous nations. As time passes, however, the nation's claims to ethnic homogeneity have

grown increasingly tenuous. A powerful combination of increasing globalization and stark

demographic trends has led to a growing internationalization of Korean society. With more and more

foreigners coming to Korea in search of the Korean Dream and more and more foreign woman

marrying Korean men, there can be no denying that the face of Korea is changing - quite literally.

Korea decided to be a full participant in the emerging global economy. It confirmed that

decision when it decided to actively recruit foreign migrants to meet the economic and demographic

needs of a fast-growing society. Koreans' xenophobia, which in the past was criticized by many, is

slowly going away with the looming foreign community. According to a Gender Equality survey,

eight out of 10 Koreans show favorable reaction toward their foreign neighbors. There are rising

numbers of mixed marriages in Korea. The number is increasing due to rural women moving into

cities, leaving young farmers and fishermen to find brides from other Asian nations. International

marriages now make up 13 percent of all marriages in Korea. More than 30 percent of international

marriages are unions between rural Korean men and foreign brides. According to the Korea Herald,

there are about 35,000 mixed-race children in Korea (The Korea Herald, 03.Aug.2006) Furthermore,

recently, the government is reviewing plans to give citizenship or residency status to those who

marry Koreans and to their children. The important one of the Korean Government policies toward

foreigners will also handle national campaigns and multicultural programs to create general social

acceptance toward all kinds of immigrants - muslim-non muslim- and raise public awareness(Donga

Ilbo. 08.Aug.2007).

In this context, foreign muslims are starting to form a kind of foreign ghetto in some places of

Seoul and its outskirts. In case of Muslim communities, in Itaewon-dong, Muslims have set up the

Muslim Cultural avenue in the vicinity of the Seoul Central mosque. The huge influx of Muslims to

Iteawon changed the image of Itaewon from the Western-American culture to Islamic culture.

Many bars and pubs were closed, instead Muslim restaurants and halal shops were filled in. In a

nutshell, Muslim town is under establishment. Along with the multiculturalizing of Korean Society,

Muslim communities in Korea are also growing fast then ever. Foreign Muslims especially are

forming their new town in the center of Seoul, Itewon-Dong where there is Central Mosque among 9

Mosques nationwide in Korea.

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156

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157

The State, Adaptation and Community Organization of Arab Muslim

Migrants in Korea

Cho, Hee-Sun

Myongji University

Ⅰ. Introduction

At a time when more people are talking about a multiracial and multicultural society, Korea is faced

with a new term coined as a “Kosian.” However, it is found that this new word only considers the

regional variables rather than the Asian Muslims who have cultural and religious distinctions. The

Asian migrants in Korea that make up the biggest proportion of the country’s total migrant

population are mostly originated from Muslim countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan and Indonesia.

They do have different identities from those of other Asian countries when it comes to culture and

religion. In this context, my research team took religion as a variable and made a term “Koslim”

which represents “Korean Muslims.”

At the beginning of the research, a so-called “Muslim Myth” was prevalent in the Korean

society as well. It was a rumor that “150,000 Muslims infiltrated into Korea with the missionary

strategy to transform Korea into a Muslim country.” As a result, Islamophobia was somewhat incited

by part of Christians in Korea. As a society that is going multicultural, Korea is critically required to

display vigilance against the Islamophobia of those convinced by the western opinions and

Christians, and to embrace and understand the Muslim migrants who will also constitute the Korean

society.

Ⅱ. State of Arab Muslims in Korea

It is true that there has been no accurate official statistics released of the number of Muslim residents

in Korea. Since the annual data on foreign residence state by Korea Immigration Service only

demonstrates the state by nationality, it is hard to figure out the number of Muslim migrants in Korea

in an accurate manner. Therefore, it has been the only way to estimate the total number of Muslims

in Korea by applying the proportion of Muslims among the legal and illegal residents in 65 countries

including 57 OIC member states and some Southeast and South Asian countries. The number of

Muslims in Korea reached at 79,355 after applying the Muslim ratio of each country to foreign

residents in Korea by nationality that was indicated in the monthly statistics of October 2009. Add

1,288, the accumulated number of Muslims naturalized as Korean citizens until 2008, and the total

number of Muslim residents in Korea can be calculated to be 80,643. Given that the total foreign

population in Korea was 1,164,166 in 2009, the Muslim population accounts for 6.9% of the total

foreign population with an estimated number of Arab Muslims of 3,087. However, according to the

latest statistics in 2011, the population of Arab Muslims in Korea was estimated at 4,295, up around

39% from October, 2009. In other words, Korea has the Arab Muslim population not in a large

number but increasing at a higher speed compared to other areas or nationalities.

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Arab

States

Number of Muslims by State

Muslim Ratio

(%)

Estimated Number of Muslims(Unit: person)

Male Female Total Male Female Total

Lebanon 30 8 38 59.7 17.9 4.8 23

Libya 151 36 187 97 146.5 34.9 181

Morocco 149 85 234 98.7 147.1 83.9 231

Mauritania 6 2 8 100 6.0 2.0 8

Bahrain 0 4 4 81.2 0.0 3.2 3

Saudi

Arabia 779 479 1,258 100 779.0 479.0 1,258

Somalia 7 1 8 99 6.9 1.0 8

Sudan 151 38 189 70 105.7 26.6 132

Syria 326 19 345 90 293.4 17.1 311

UAE 84 29 113 96 80.6 27.8 108

Algeria 81 30 111 99 80.2 29.7 110

Yemen 72 18 90 100 72.0 18.0 90

Oman 65 25 90 97 63.1 24.3 87

Jordan 417 64 481 94 392.0 60.2 452

Iraq 243 60 303 97 235.7 58.2 294

Egypt 823 99 922 90 740.7 89.1 830

Djibouti 6 0 6 94 5.6 0.0 6

Qatar 11 2 13 77.5 8.5 1.6 10

Kuwait 18 11 29 85 15.3 9.4 25

Tunisia 69 28 97 98 67.6 27.4 95

Palestine 26 7 33 97 25.2 6.8 32

Total 3,514 1,045 4,559 91.7 3,289 1,005 4,294

There are various reasons for such a smaller number of Arab Muslims compared to other

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Muslims. The biggest one is the geographical distance. The Arab Muslim population in Korea can be

seen as small but on the rise at a higher pace than any other regions. For example, the number of

Muslim migrants from Saudi Arabia was 1,258 in 2011, increased more than three times of 421 in

2009. Korea received 922 Egyptian workers in 2011, up from 667 in 2009. Particularly, Egyptians

account for the highest proportion of the total illegal Arab Muslim residents of 635 (167,780 illegal

migrants in total), standing at 405. Meanwhile, the number of Arab students was merely 489 (male

389, female 100) out of 88,468, the total international students in Korea in 2011. Saudi Arabia made

up 39% of the Arab students in Korea, which amounted to 191 out of 489. In 2007, the Saudi

government decided to send 85 students to Korea under its national scholarship and established a

plan to annually send as many as 500 students to Korea.

The Korean society has Arab Muslim migrants from all walks of life including a recently

growing number of labor workers, students under the government scholarship of Korea or their own

countries, office workers of own businesses or business branches and marriage migrants (113 in

2011/144,681 in total). Whether the Arab Muslims are successful or not to adapt to the Korean

society, they are demonstrating another aspect of Korea heading for a multicultural society.

Ⅲ. Inflow and Adaptation of Arab Muslims

1. Inflow

In an interview with Arab Muslims, it was found that the primary reason for such inflow was the

income gap between Korea and the home countries for blue-collar workers, and the social network

for white-collar workers. Egyptian workers expressed high satisfaction about their income in a group

discussion in Musalla(prayer room) in Shinpyeong 2-ri, Pocheon which is the residential community

of the Egyptian workers. Most of them are young adults in their 20s to 30s educated higher than the

high school level in the middle class who can mobilize necessary knowledge and resources for

overseas employment. It is common to see those Egyptians who came to Korea on a tourist visa

invited by their relatives or friends to remain as illegal residents.

Most of the business investors among the white-collars are working as export traders of

secondhand cars on a legal visa status. While it may vary upon economic conditions in Korea and

their home countries, it is known that around 100 Arabs in Incheon are engaged in the export

business of secondhand cars. Some of the Arab Muslim who came as students settled in large Korean

companies.

Saudi students, the majority of Arab students in Korea, are the beneficiaries of the Saudi policy

for diversifying study abroad destinations that was promoted by King Abdullah in 2005. However,

they may be regarded as passive form of migrants who had no other options but Korea due to low

scores despite their wishes for going to other countries.

The number of Arab migrants is expected to rise regardless of blue or white-collar workers or

students with an expanded exchange between the Arab world and Korea and an improved social,

political and economic conditions of Korea. It is highly likely to see a wider social network between

the two regions and a rapid increase in the number of migrants as the migrant population grows with

a richer history of migration. The prime example is an increase of Egyptian workers.

2. Adaptation It is found that the blue-collars and Arab migrants are relatively highly educated people. Most of

them consider working in Korea as a labor worker a good option for their better futures. Their

favorite workplace is a factory out of the blue-collar industries since working at a factory guarantees

fixed work hours and holidays a couple of times a month or every week despite a relatively small

income. In addition, most operations are conducted indoor at factories so that workers may avoid

heat waves or cold waves. The workers at livestock sheds, flower gardens and waste sites

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complained about the pains of the cold of a Korean winter and expressed difficulties that they cannot

even meet friends due to irregular work hours and absence of holidays.

Most interviewed workers responded that they earn 1.1 to 1.35 million won. In terms of the

white-collar group, those engaged in large companies were found to be earning a bigger income than

those in charge of translation or accounting in embassies. Therefore, the blue-collars can be regarded

as having a higher income satisfaction than the white-collars. In terms of Saudi students, the Saudi

government was covering all the tuition fees and granting 1,200 dollars for personal expenses and

750 dollars for housing. Therefore, a majority of Saudi students expressed satisfaction over their

living conditions in Korea.

With regard to Korean proficiency which may become the yardstick for adaptation of the

Korean society, the blue-collars had a strong desire to learn Korean due to the communication gap

between the Koreans at workplaces such as factories or livestock sheds. However, they responded

that they are less motivated to learn Korean due to the uncertainty over the period of stay in Korea on

an illegal visa status. Compared to the blue-collar group who makes a direct contact with Koreans,

the white-collars were at a lower proficiency of the Korean language since they worked at a place not

requiring Korean skills or allowing English communications. The students who are learning Korean

responded that they found it very difficult and had skepticism of whether they may understand the

Korean-spoken major courses after a one-year study of Korean. This results in that some Arab

students are changing the destinations for studying abroad due to the failure in adapting to studying

the language.

Arab Muslims are pointing out the food issue as their biggest problem in their Korean life.

Many factory workers strongly complained about the food served at workplace that contains pork

without any consideration about their culture. Many Arab students chose to have fast food as a meal

because they failed to adapt to the Korean food. Their abstinence from drinking is another obstacle to

hanging out with the foreign colleagues from other regions.

Many blue-collar workers responded in an interview that they wish for working in Seoul or

nearby areas of Seoul. Those living in Shinpyeong 2-ri complained that they cannot go out of

Pocheon due to a poor transportation to Seoul and lack of holidays, and for fear of police

crackdowns. Most Arab students are living in a dormitory for 2 persons with friends from their

countries. Arab workers are commonly living in a rent room near their workplace, shared by two or

four friends from their home countries, or living in a makeshift house in group at workplace.

Ⅳ. Religious Activity and Community Organization of Arab Muslims in Korea

1. Individual Worship and Friday Worship It is commonly said that Muslim migrants, transcending race or nationality, uphold the Islamic values

and form Muslim communities. Even the Muslims who had neglected religious activities back in

their home countries often focus on religion in migrated countries. A survey on whether they carry

out individual worship that serves as a religious criterion for Muslims, most respondents answered

positively regardless of their professions. While students said that they had no difficulties in

conducting individual worship, the blue-collar workers answered that they often came into conflict

with their employers in doing the worship at workplace.

Most Arab students responded in an interview that they normally cannot make it to the Friday

worship due to the school classes. The office workers attend the Friday worship at a relatively high

rate. The labor workers also often have difficulties in attending the Friday worship because of the

remote location of their workplaces so that many of them instead visit a mosque to worship on

Sunday.

2. Forming Community around Mosque

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To Arab Muslims in Korea, the mosque is a multi-purpose venue for worship, sharing job

information, hangout, eating traditional food at nearby halal restaurants and buying halal food

ingredients. The Seoul Central Mosque in Itaewon gets filled with Muslims in Korea on weekends,

holidays or Islamic holidays. It is a “safe point of gathering” that serves as a place where illegal

residents can exchange information on jobs and expand their social networks.

Aside from the Seoul Central Mosque, there are also many mosques and Islamic centers in

Muslim communities. In addition, there are always musallas in place, sized small and not supported

by the central mosque, in every Muslim community. The musalla in Shinpyeong 2-ri is directly run

by the Egyptian and Bangladeshi workers living in the area on the fund chipped in about 10,000 won

per person per month. The musalla has two rooms each used by the Egyptians and Bangladeshis

when not in the worship session. The two groups of people form a community beyond their

nationalities through communications in a simple Korean. Around 20 Egyptians living in the waste

site in Hwajeon-dong, Goyang, Gyeonggi Province also chipped in on a place that has a room and a

kitchen to provide a temporary house and job information to newly arrived workers or friends and

relatives from their home country. Meanwhile, as the Muslim student population is growing in

Korea, the Muslim students are requesting their universities for building musallas in the campus.

3. Social Networking Based on Nationality

It is true that Muslims form a community around the Mosque. They also establish a practical social

network based on nationality. An interview found that the blue-collar group frequently meets those

from their home countries living in the same area, while the white-collar group has less regular

meetings or hangouts depending on nationality. It may be the reason for such trend that more white-

collar workers live with their family members than the other group. Approximately 25 Egyptians

engaged in export of secondhand cars are living in Incheon without any regular meetings. In contrast,

it was surveyed that 10 Egyptians working in a livestock shed in Paju, 50 Egyptians in Shinpyeong

2-ri and 20 Egyptians in Hwajeon-dong, Goyang are having regular or irregular meetings and

exchanges at musallas or in their towns.

Ⅵ. Conclusion

It is identified that Arab Muslim migrants are on the rise in Korea although it is true that they are in a

relatively small number compared to the Muslims from other geographically close countries in

Southeast, South, and Central Asia. Mosques or local musallas are becoming a practical foundation

that enables Arab workers to attract more relatives or friends from their home countries. The number

of Saudi students coming to Korea for study is also on the increase in spite of the lowered learning

motivation due to difficulties in learning Korean and the perception that Korean may not be accepted

as an international language, although the Saudi government started to send its students to Korea on

a national level.

The west divides the development of Muslim communities into 4 stages: the first is the pioneer

stage; the second is the chain migration stage; the third is the family migration stage; and the last is

the stage of advent of Muslim generations grew up in the west. Applying such standard to Arab

Muslim migrants in Korea, the Muslim community is at a transitional period between the pioneer and

chain migration stages. In particular, the first Egyptian pioneers are inviting men from their home

country such as relatives and friends through their networking. As shown in the second stage of

European Muslim communities, Muslim migrants are not interested in the language or culture of

Korea but only dreaming of a stable life after “returning home” with the money saved in Korea.

Cho, Hee-Sun is Professor of the Department of Arabic Studies, Myongji University, South Korea. She received PhD

from National University of Tunisia. She is the author of Understanding Islamic Women(2009) and co-edited Women in

Islamic Society(2004).

162

Inclusion and Exclusion of Life Spaces for Muslim Populations of Seoul

Song, Do-young

Hanyang University

1. Finding spaces for Muslims in Seoul

This presentation attempts to understand the configuration of newly growing Muslims' life space in

Seoul. In the city of Seoul where the majority of residents are not familiar with the presence of

ethnically different foreign Muslim population, how do migrant Muslims find and configure their

own space/ time for survival in urban transnational social field? Within the given condition of

geographic and cultural environment of Seoul, intertwined with troublesome history of its post-

colonial era, as well as new IT and transportation systems, how do foreign Muslims react and

manage their own life spaces?

As one of the fastest growing cities of the 20th century for several decades, the majority of Seoul’s

population is composed of 1st and 2nd generations of migrants from other regions of Korea. Strong

aspiration for 'success' - prosperous economic and social success, or simply an aspiration for a 'better

life' – was embedded in this migration to Seoul. Today, approximately half of the whole South

Korean population resides in Seoul's grand metropolitan area.

Since the end of the 1980s, new kinds of migrants joined this inflow of people. Initially, these

included migrant workers from the South and South East Asian countries. Soon after, ethnic Korean

Chinese joined the drastically changing global situation following the fall of 'Socialist bloc'. With

developing politico-economic relationship between China and South Korea, Korean Chinese

migrants became important figures to the composition of Seoul's urban life. Remarkable

advancement of information technology and transportation industries encouraged this 'jump' trend.

Until the 1990s, Seoul insisted that it is a relatively uni-ethnic city considering its large population

size. Such stance extended onto Korea as a nation-state as it built its national identity rooted in the

idea that it is a 'uni-ethnic nation state' in which the nation is 'imagined to be composed of (almost)

only ethnic Koreans'. This strong imagination of uni-ethnic nation state identity stems from a

tumultuous history of incessant foreign invasions on the Korean peninsula.

When the initial shock of Asian countries' financial crisis in 1997 subsided, the inflow of

foreigners to South Korea and naturally to its capital city of Seoul revitalized and even further

developed. In the early 2000s, immigrants to South Korea became more diverse with growing

international marriages and students from other developing countries including Central Asia and

Southeast Asia. The popularization and widespread of Korean popular cultural products and their

aura further fueled other Asian societies’ aspirations for the 'Korean dream'. Among these increasing

immigrant groups, Muslims constitute an important part.

The visibility of migrant Muslims is relatively more important than that of migrants from other

Asian countries. First of all, their physical characteristics are comparatively more remarkable. Their

strict restrictions of behavior and movements in their daily life, which are related to their cultural

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identity, also play a role. Visitors and migrants from western and other Asian countries are primarily

distinguished by referring to their country or region. For migrant Muslims, however, many Koreans

use religion as a category of identity. Chinese or Vietnamese migrants, who are relatively more

secular and have similar religious cultures of Buddhism and Confucianism with Koreans, are not

referred to in association with their religion. The perceived combination of ethnic category and

religious category applied to Muslim migrants may be similar but they are very distinict with other

migrant groups. Weekly gathering of Muslims for religious worship in a central district of Seoul add

to their heightened visibility.

2. Muslims' street in 'foreigners' district' of central Seoul

The composition of daily everyday life space and time may be of no particular interest for the

general public. Routine and almost automatic habitual practices are stuff of 'ordinary' and

'standardized' aspects of life shared by millions of city dwellers. However, the composition of daily

life space and time illustrates modes of life, the basis of a cultural system, and the rules and small

deviations of a group. Having 3 meals a day, for example, is not a natural but a culture-specific

biological-economic-cultural practice. The practice of lunchtime around noon can be interpreted as

a cultural regulation that dictates the spatial and temporal order of today's urban life. The practice

of taking a midday lunch is historically particular and is the result of a particular political-economic

strategy. Nevertheless, people do not generally question the spatial and temporal composition of

'ordinary citizens'.

Itaewon district, geographically situated in the central area of Seoul, is known as a rare

'foreigners' urban district' for several decades. The history of Itaewon district is closely related to

foreign influences on this overly nationalistic capital city of South Korea. Temporarily occupied by

the Chinese army during its confrontation with the Japanese army at the end of 19th century, this

important part of Yongsan-gu became home to the Japanese army camp during the 36 years of

Japanese colonization of South Korea. The U.S. army inherited this strategic part of land in 1945, the

year of Korea's liberation and division of Korea. Since then throughout the Korean War in the 1950s

it remains as the U.S. army camp, the largest U.S. property located in the geographical center of

Seoul.

Located across the street from the U.S. army camp, Itaewon district started to develop as a

'service area' for U.S. soldiers and army personnel. Under the strong influence of U.S. army authority

Itaewon became a unique urban district of Seoul where English and the U.S. dollar became the norm

of the streets and many bars and shops were restricted to Korean (male) residents. It became a kind

of a 'foreigners' territory' where foreigners, mainly Westerners, could feel at home, free to behave

without adhering to Korea’s cultural rules. When the South Korean government established the

Islamic Central Masjid with the financial support from Middle Eastern Islamic countries, the obvious

location for construction was on the hill of Itaewon – ‘a foreigners’ district’ – where the impressively

foreign architecture of religious worship will attract the least of resistance from Korean residents.

The first group of the faithful at the Islamic Central Masjid of Seoul consisted of Middle Eastern

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businessmen visiting Seoul, diplomats from Islamic countries who were working and residing in

neighboring embassy area, and some limited numbers of Korean Muslims from various parts of

Seoul from the 1970s through the1980s.

For this first generation of Seoul's Muslims, their patterns of movement were not labyrinthine.

Some were diplomats residing in embassy housing nearby, and others Korean Muslims from

different parts of Seoul. They visited the Central Masjid on Friday at noon or during the daytime on

weekends. They left the Central Masjid to return the following week at similar hours. Another group

of Muslims were 'visitors' from Islamic countries conducting business in South Korea. They also

participated in the Friday's collective prayer when possible. They also occasionally visited the

Central Masjid for individual prayer time. Finishing a prayer or a discussion with their co-faithful,

they left the neighborhood as they left South Korea. There was not much in the neighborhood except

the Central Majid for Muslims.

The number of the Muslim faithful suddenly galloped towards the end of the 1980s when the first

flow of migrant workers from South and South East Asia arrived. The weekly landscape of the

neighborhood of Central Masjid started to change. These new Muslims’ occupation in South Korea

distinguished them from the first generation of Muslims. Mainly blue color workers at factories on

the urban peripheries, they had different life spaces and daily schedules. Many resided near factories

in Kyung-gi province located near but outside Seoul. Most of them could only visit the Central

Masjid on Sundays as they worked the other days of the week. Because their visit to the Central

Masjid provided a rare occasion of gathering with their co-faithful groups and compatriots, many

stayed after prayer time at the Masjid chatting and sharing information or simply passing time

together. It was during the first half of the 1990s that few Koreans opened halal restaurants and

employed Muslims from South Asia. Customers of these first halal restaurants, however, were not

the migrants Muslim laborers but western tourists and visiting businessmen from Middle East.

Ordinary Muslim migrant workers from South and Southeast Asia could not afford to eat in these

restaurants.

In the mean time, Muslim migrant workers in South Korea continued to grow. Recognized only as

'temporary residents' at the time, many Muslim migrant workers prolonged their stay even after their

visa sojourning period ran out. Newly entering migrant workers also continued to join Korean

factories in desperate need of manual workers. In this way, these new Muslim migrant workers'

presence was becoming irreversible. With such relative 'stabilization' of Muslim migrants' presence,

the landscape around the Islamic Central Masjid started to change: numerous Muslim worshipers

literally covered the street to the Central Masjid around noon each Friday. Islamic book shops,

several halal restaurants, halal grocery stores, and phone shops with Pakistani or Indonesian flags

and Arabic letters on their signboard began to appear along the street leading from the subway station

to the Central Masjid. Seoulites started to call this street as the 'Muslims' street' of Itaewon. In this

way, a new 'cultural territory for Muslims' emerged. We will now more closely observe the practices

of Muslims' space making in Seoul, focusing on case studies of residents and visitors -- cultural

actors -- who frequent the 'Muslims' street' of Itaewon.

3. Configuration of Muslims' life space in Seoul: case studies

165

Before a close observation of Muslims' life space and time in Seoul, we need to address two aspects.

First is,the considerable diversity of Muslim populations in Seoul. Depending on gender, nationality,

region of origin, age group, job and social class, education level, marriage status, visa status, and

even religious tendencies practices can vary from one group to another. These categories directly

influence the structure and organization of daily life space and schedule. Each category can impose

some particular mode of life and cultural adaptation in a given environment of Seoul. To set the

limits of research, this paper focuses only on foreign Muslims who frequent the 'Muslims' street' of

Itaewon area. The cases studies for this research do not pretend to represent all foreign Muslims of

Itaewon district. Generalization and application based on these cases should be limited. Nevertheless,

these cases contribute as 'meaningful' examples.

The second aspect is the ways in which Islam intervenes in the practices of everyday life. It is a

widely shared belief that Islam as a religion actively mediates everyday practices. This characteristic

makes Muslim's daily practices more visibly distinct in today's urban environment of expanding

capitalistic mode of global culture that generally encourages a more secular way of life. Religion has

been, in fact, an important organizing principle of time and space as well as the meaning of time and

space. In such way, religion has also been an important organizing principal of the cultural cosmos

for individuals and groups. However, in Seoul’s relatively secularized urban field, Islamic practices -

- including 5 times of prayers a day, and restriction of certain food consumption and regulations on

individual/ group practices according to the religious seasons and festive periods -- are unfamiliar to

many urban residents. The notion of purity and contamination, particularly strong in South Asia

and Middle Eastern regions, can cause a stronger defensive reaction towards Muslims in Seoul. In

turn, Muslims interpret the attitudes of Korean residents as very insensitive, disrespectful, and

lacking religious sensitivity towards Muslims.

As a result, Muslims in Seoul are left with few choices for cultural adaptation. They can either

attempt to assimilate and share the space with others or avoid and even resist the host society by

keeping a distance and practicing self-escaping. Each cultural group of Muslims or each individual

member of concerned Muslim groups can choose either one of these two strands of adaptation

strategies. Now, we will observe few of these cases.223

1) Mr. A -- a Sri Lankan shop keeper's daily life space

Mr. A, about 30 years old, was born in Sri Lanka to a Muslim family. His mother tongue is Tamil, but

he can speak Singhali and English. His hometown was a multi-religious city: there were not only

Muslims but also Hindus, Christians and Buddhists in his hometown neighborhood. He studied

computer engineering at the British College of Sri Lanka. He originally hoped to study further in

Europe. But with the economic crisis of Europe he changed his mind and arrived in Seoul. His

cousin was already in Korea working. His cousin’s presence was one of the reasons for this choice.

223

The cases I am using in this paper are 'composite' ones, a kind of 'imagined composition' based

on stories of several individuals to compose an 'ideal typed' case.

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He is planning on pursuing his graduate degree next year at a certain university in Seoul. He is

currently attending a Korean language class at the same university in the morning during weekdays,

and working as a shopkeeper in the afternoon at a shop located on the Muslim's street of Itaewon,

which is owned by a Muslim merchant from a Middle Eastern country. And he lives in a room on the

basement level of the shop building where he works.

From Monday to Thursday, Mr. A's day starts at around 6:30 a.m. When he wakes up, he takes a

quick washing and does the morning prayer. After the morning prayer, he takes a longer shower. He

then goes upstairs to the kitchen of the shop and prepares his breakfast. Rice or rotti bread with curry

is his typical breakfast. His habitual breakfast is possible with the advantageous location of his

housing in Itaewon. He goes leaves the house at 8 a.m. and takes the subway to S university's Korean

language course which starts at 9:00 a.m. His language course lasts until 1:00 p.m. Then he goes

back to his room in the Itaewon shop’s basement, takes a shower and has lunch at the shop where he

works around 2:10 p.m.

During his workday, Mr. A can take prayer times of Juhur, Asr, Maghrib, and Isya at the shop.

There is no difficulty practicing his rituals during the workday. The owner of the shop is a Muslim

himself. And Mr A's co-worker is also a Muslim from Pakistan. He can even visit the Islamic

Central Masjid in the proximity of the shop for the prayer time of Maghrib. He takes his dinner at the

shop, after the prayer of Isya, around 9:00 or 9:30 p.m. He finishes his work and leaves the shop at

10:00 p.m. Returning to his room, he does his Korean language assignments, sometimes washes his

clothes, and chats with friends and family members using Facebook, Kakao Talk, and Skype

(especially with family members in Sri Lanaka) for about one hour or one and a half hours. He also

spends his private time on the Internet surfing and reading. And he goes to bed around 2:00 a.m.

On Friday, Mr. A leaves his language course one hour early, to join the Friday's collective prayer

at the Central Masjid in Itaewon. He has a 'free time' on Saturday and Sunday mornings. He visits

other parts of Seoul, meets friends, or simply hangs out in Itaewon district. He goes to work at the

shop before noon. Weekend afternoons at work and prayer times are similar to those of other days.

Mr. A's path of movement includes his school, working place, and house. He takes all three meals

at the shop. Because his shop is owned and managed by a Muslim, he does not have to leave for a

'halal area' to eat. Another spatial aspect of his daily life has to do with the daily five prayers.

Practicing daily prayers is not considered to be an 'outside the norm' in his cultural environment. On

the contrary, the prayers are accepted and even encouraged by the presence of other Muslims in the

neighborhood. The geographical proximity of his shop to the Central Masjid also encourages daily

prayers. Other Muslims in the neighborhood can influence his job opportunity and social network.

2) Mr. B -- an Egyptian-Japanese merchant working with transnational network

Mr. B, in his mid 40s, was born in a city of North Africa. As a hard working student, he finished his

university work at a law school of his hometown. He then joined a public travel agency institution

and met a Japanese businessman who invited him to his tourist business in Japan. Working in Japan,

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he obtained Japanese citizenship. Sometimes he says he got the citizenship with the help of his

Japanese boss and at other times he says he got it via his marriage to a Japanese woman. In the early

2000s, he started his own business in the U.S. However, the event of 911 in New York forced him to

wrap-up his business and return to Japan. He speaks Arabic, English, and Japanese somewhat

fluently.

Back in Japan, he began his own travel agency specializing in pilgrimage to Mecca. Migrant

Muslims in Japan were to be his main client group. But it was difficult to gather enough migrant

Muslims in Japan as pilgrimage travelers. Then, he found out that there is a relatively large numbers

of Muslims in South Korea. He left Japan for Korea and opened a travel agency. He also began a

Malay-Indonesian restaurant on the same street leading to the Islamic Central Masjid. All these were

done at the end of 2011.

In the meantime, he also married an Indonesian woman who was finishing her PhD study at a

Korean university. He still has his Japanese wife and a 6 years old daughter in Japan. His marriage to

the Indonesian woman who speaks fluent Korean during the winter of 2012 was officially registered

in Saudi Arabia where marriage with four wives is accepted according to the Islamic law. He

commutes between Japan and South Korea and spends two weeks in each country while managing

his business. Mr. C says he has also opened travel agencies in Indonesia and Singapore, but this is

not verified. He however does travels frequently to Indonesia and other Southeast Asian regions for

business.

These are some examples of the daily movement of Mr. B during his stay in Seoul.

Mr. B gets up at 7:30 a.m. and has a morning prayer session at his house in Itaewon. He returns

to bed after the morning prayer and really gets up around 10:00 a.m. He washes himself, and takes

his breakfast after 10 a.m. in the morning. For breakfast, he eats Indonesian rice plate prepared by his

Indonesian wife. In Japan, he says he only drinks a cup of coffee for breakfast. Residing within a

200-meter radius of his shops, he walks to work. He spends most of day around his house, two shops

and the Central Masjid. All these places are located on the same street, covering at most 300 meters.

He barely leaves this district but constantly communicating with his business partners and clients via

telephone and the Internet. Most of the clients at his travel agency are Muslims. And most of his

restaurant's clients are visitors of the Central Masjid. Suppliers of the foodstuff for his restaurant are

within the neighborhood of 5 minutes' walking distance. And there is a web of Muslim businesses on

this street.

Even though he has an office at his travel agency, Mr. B prefers to work from his restaurant where

he can easily encounter Muslims and non-Muslim visitors and tourists from various countries. Some

curious Koreans looking for a 'new cultural experience' of Islamic culture also drop by his restaurant.

Many Muslim merchants on this 'Muslims' street' of Itaewon are from Pakistan and Bangladesh. And

many of them visit the Central Majid several times a day prayer times. On Friday and Sunday, there

is an enormous crowd of Muslim faithful on the street. Mr. B says that he goes to pray at the Central

Masjid for all prayer sessions. Business networks here are built on the accumulation of mutual

observation and incessant verification of reliability. And reputation plays an important role in

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business among this relatively closed community of Itaewon Muslims.

Mr. B also tries to fully exploit his transnational network. For his travel agency, telephones and

computer systems are two crucial work tools. Sitting at his office or at his restaurant, Mr. B deals,

chats, and exchanges information with people in Japan, Singapore, Indonesia, and Saudi Arabia

using his phone and computer. He is logged into his skype account most of day. In this way, he is

working in Itaewon district but also 'everywhere'. He pursues every possible business opportunity

by fully employing his contacts and networks in and out of the Muslims community.

He closes his restaurant and travel agency at around 10:00 p.m. and takes his dinner at home at

10:30 p.m. After washing himself and some other works, he goes to sleep at midnight. His daily

movement on the weekend seems similar to that of other days. He continues to work and stay in this

urban districts 2 weeks at a time. His daily movements seem to exist within a narrowly confined

physical space. But within such limited space of the everyday, Mr. B’s business practices extend onto

a transnational space. The geographically confined spaces of his work act as nodes that connect him

to the outer world. Mr. B uses such transnational networks of limited cultural territories to maximize

his own interest. His transnational marriage and the combination of religion and business strategy

offer a particular example.

3) Ms. C : a university student from Indonesia

Ms. C, in her mid 20s, was born in Indonesia. After her undergraduate studies in her home country,

Ms. C applied to M.A. programs in international relations in Great Briton and in South Korea at the

same time. She chose South Korea, which offered her a scholarship. Before South Korea, she had

travelled Australia, Singapore, and several European countries where she participated in concerts and

festivals to promote culture. After she arrived in South Korea with a scholarship in August 2012, Ms.

C started to learn the Korean language with an Indonesian students association. She speaks Bahasa

Indonesia, Sunda, and English fluently. She also speaks beginner’s level Korean. She shares a two-

bedroom with her friend near her university in the Southern part of Seoul.

This is her daily movement from Monday to Friday. Ms. C gets up around 5:00 to 6:00 a.m. for

her morning prayer in her room. And she goes back to sleep until 7:30 to 8:00 a.m. She takes her

breakfast on 8:00 a.m. with bread and milk purchased earlier at ‘Paris Baguette’ bakery in the

neighborhood. She also shops at the neighborhood marts for most of her foodstuffs except meat,

spices and some special ingredients for Indonesian food. After breakfast, she prepares for class at

home, and take a shower at 10:00 a.m. Ms. C starts to prepare her lunch at 10:30 a.m. for about 30

minutes. Her ordinary lunch menu is rice with chicken in Indonesian style. After cooking finished at

11:00 a.m., she cleans her room, and has lunch at 11:30 a.m. It seems that lunch is the most

important meal of the day for her. Ms. C's lunch menu is Indonesian food mainly prepared with

ingredients purchased at a halal grocery store in Itaewon, where she visits twice a month.

Ms. C does her homework and other preparation for the class after lunch until 2:00 p.m. In the

meantime, she does the Jamak prayer which combines two prayers in a single seesionat around 1:30

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p.m. She finally leaves the house for school by bus. It takes about 15 minutes from her home to the

university where she studies. Most of her classes start around 2:30 p.m. and end before 6:00 p.m. She

normally has her dinner after classes with her classmates. For dinner, she goes to restaurants around

the subway station near the university. Other than vegetables, seafood is her favorite menu for dinner.

She occasionally consumes non-halal chicken or beef with her friends but never alcohol which is

absolutely prohibited.

After dinner, she leaves for home by bus. The first thing she does at home is the evening prayer

(maghrib). After another shower, she observes the night prayer at around 10:30 p.m. Then Ms. C

enters her world of media watching internet TV, twittering, and skype-ing with her family members

and friends in Indonesia. She enjoys Indonesian TV programs via the Internet TV streaming. She has

skype communication with her family members in Indonesia about once a week. But she keeps daily

skype communication with her boyfriend in Indonesia, for about 2 hours a day from 10:00 p.m. to

12:00 a.m. In fact, Ms. C keeps her skype logged in for these 2 hours while she is doing her study

and other assignments. It is like studying at her desk with her boyfriend by her side. They

occasionally exchange a few words and sometimes have serious discussions on various subjects. She

continues to work on her computer after 12:00 a.m. doing some translation or voluntary works for

the Indonesian students association. Or sometimes she teaches the Indonesian language to a staff

member at a Korean bank. She goes to sleep at 1:00 a.m. She has almost the same daily movement

and schedule from Monday through Friday. Friday evening is an exception when she goes to another

university in Sung-dong-ku for her Korean language lesson.

Saturday mornings are similar to the other days of the week. On Saturday afternoons, she goes to

Nami-island of Ga-pyeong and works as a tourist guide. Sometimes she attends meetings organized

by the Indonesian students association or other groups. Ms. C visits the Islamic Central Masjid in

Itaewon about twice a month. Most of her visits to Itaewon are on Sundays, and not Fridays. Her

points of travel in Itaewon include the Central Masjid, halal food shops, a halal food restaurant near

Itaewon subway station, and some coffee shop to spend free time with friends. She also visits

different districts of the city like Kang-nam or a multiplex movie theater with friends on Sundays.

Occasionally she joins her Korean friends at a drinking place to chat together, even though she only

drinks non-alcoholic beverages.

She avoids going out with friends before the evening prayer. If she should go out before the

evening prayer time, she tries to find a suitable place for her evening prayer session. For this reason,

she has a kind of mental map on the places where she can pray, such as a corner of a certain shopping

mall, or the emergency exit stairs of a certain university building. When she plans her Sunday

evening outings, she considers prayer places and tries to plan accordingly.

4. Interpretation of spatial characteristics

Migrants’ cultural adaptation in a host society can proceed in several ways. Migrants adopt some

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cultural factors of the host society to make them their own. But the trajectory of their aspirations

does not always follow that of host society. People also want to maintain and further develop one’s

own cultural, religious and individual identity in their migrated land. Encountering cultural

differences in the host society demands fostering strategies for negotiating different cultures among

migrants. For the Muslim migrants who reside near the 'Muslims' street' or frequent the Islamic

Central Masjid and its neighboring street, the cases demonstrate that each group or individual uses

different degrees of inclusion and exclusion strategies in organizing and maneuvering their daily life

spaces.

One special characteristic of the Muslims street in Itaewon district is the remarkable diversity

within a very limited urban space. About fifteen of Muslims oriented businesses – including halal

food grocery stores, Islamic book shops, halal restaurants, and cell-phone shops for Muslim migrants

– share the neighborhood with drinking bars for US GIs, gay and trans-gender clubs, ordinary small

Korean restaurants where consuming pork soup and liquor is a norm, prostitutes salons, barber shops

for Black Africans, and shaman houses.

At first glance, such complex cultural puzzle of Itaewon district seems to be the least ideal urban

space for Muslims’ everyday life. But some of these non-Islamic and 'not-so-ideal’ aspects of the

district are important symbolic factors that make possible the situating of a Muslim space at heart of

Seoul. Foreigners find themselves as ‘foreigners’ and ‘only visitors’ in other urban districts of Seoul.

But district of Itaewon is one exceptional urban space where foreigners can feel at home. Foreigners

feel as 'full members' of the society on the streets of Itaewon. Certain special cultural aspects or

subcultures that are excluded from other districts of Seoul are accepted here. Foreign languages,

different colored faces of diverse ethnic groups are part of an inclusive urban landscape. Culturally

specific costumes and religions are not perceived as 'strange' and 'out of the norm' on the streets of

Itaewon. Rather, they are one of many subcultures that make up the daily scene of this district. And

Islam is one of those 'subcultures' of the urban life in Itaewon district.

In efforts to maintain, develop and display their identity in this ‘foreigners’ district’ within the

mainly uni-ethnic mega city Seoul, Muslims of Itaewon become very selective in their choice of

daily life spaces. They share most of public transportation with Koreans, but they do not want to

share their place of religious worship. For that reason, non-Muslims are not welcome to the inside of

the Masjid building. This restriction of non-Muslims can be interpreted as a way of avoidance,

exclusion of potential religious pollution. Owing to the diversity of Muslims, space is divided among

different groups. Categories for division include gender, different religious tendency, location of

work place and residence, job, and different degrees of sensitivity on religious regulations.

The most important reason for migration for Muslim migrants is not religion but economic

opportunity. Itaewon’s Muslim migrants choose to come to South Korea and specifically to Seoul’s

Itaewon district primarily for economic reasons and business opportunities. Here, Muslim migrants

construct their own cultural map according to regulations of Islam’s daily practices, which offers a

particular configuration of their everyday life spaces.

The Central Masjid functions as a sacred space or a space of reference for many Muslim migrants

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in Korea. While there is an increasing number of small musallah and masjid for different national or

regional groups,the Islamic Central Masjid of Itaewon remains a space where Muslims from various

regions, social class and migrant status (legal or illegal) gather as 'full members' of Islamic ‘ummah’

at the heart of mostly uni-cultural Seoul.

Because ‘identity’ can develop with ‘distinctions’, Muslim identity also develops with variations

to daily practices. Similarities and differences in the structures of Muslims’ daily life space can

further show us their strategy of adaptation in the city of Seoul. Temporal geography expresses and

exploits the cultural identity strategies of these new residents of Seoul.

Do-young Song is Professor at the Department of Cultural Anthropology, Hanyang University, South Korea. He had his

PhD of historical anthropology at École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (Paris) with a case study of migration

and urbanization in a Southern Tunisia. He continued his study on dynamics of post-colonial Northern African cities,

including Fez of Morocco. He also has been studying several spatial culture cases of Seoul, Korea. He is focusing, in the

present, his research interest on the spatial culture of Muslim migrants from Islamic countries in Seoul and its suburban

areas.

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PANEL 6:

Urban Aspiration in Comparative Perspectives

Chair/Discussant:

Van der Veer, Peter (MPI MMG)

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Dealing with Dragon:

Urban Planning in Hanoi

Ngo, Tam T.T. and van der Veer, Peter

MPI MMG

The metaphysics of urban planning

Urban planning is commonly portrayed as a secular process based on technical and financial

expertise and arguments. It is the heroic efforts of engineers, architects, and construction workers

combined with the machinations of city bureaucrats and project developers that plan urban renewal

and urban expansion. With the gradual urbanization of human society over the last century and its

acceleration in Asia over the last decades urban planning is at the heart of social transformation.

Whatever the theoretical difficulties with the generality of the notion of ‘modernization’ it is here

that it seems least problematic. The financial and political aspects can be understood from the

perspective of political economy, while the technical aspects require a scientific mindset.

What anthropologists like Jim Holston have been pointing out, however, is that the

implementation of urban planning meets all kinds of unexpected (unplanned) realities ‘on the

ground’, so to say. The clash between the vision of planners and the perspectives of those who are

living in these visions is particularly striking in cases of radical modernist planning, as for example

Niemeyer’s Brasilia or Corbusier’s Chandigarh. From this work it emerges that the rationality and

functionalism of urban planning is in fact part of a visionary exercise that can be called utopian,

metaphysical, or even magical. The extent to which urban planners are able to ignore social reality or

to dismiss it is an indication of the aspirational nature of their endeavors.

Because of the large amounts of money that are involved in urban planning and project

development the spoils are enormous. This is an arena of great speculation, in which information is a

crucial asset. Given the inequality of access to information, the shifting nature of political decision-

making, no one can be certain about where things are heading. This fundamental uncertainty can be

addressed in a variety of ways, but one set of possible approaches can be called ‘religious’ or

magical’. There is in fact no distinction between religion and magic in a formal sense, although it

may play a role in internal debates in the society we study. Participation in lotteries, buying shares or

land at the advice of religious specialists, practices of self-cultivation, prayer, ritual worship of

deities, Ponzi schemes, investment in houses, project development, they all are parts of speculative

practices that cannot be easily divided into secular versus religious. In Asia the opening up of

markets previously highly regulated by state socialism has created a feverish atmosphere of

opportunity, luck, and misfortune. Everyone, from high to low, is in some way participating in urban

aspirations that are tied to urban planning.

The above goes to say that the process of urban planning, despite its image, cannot be

separated from various forms of utopianism. Its image of engineering, overcoming technical

obstacles, dealing with recalcitrant populations, all in the name of progress hides the magic of power.

This is very clear from the history of ‘master plans’ in South Asia which shows an enormous

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confidence on the part of urban planners that their spatial interventions can create a ‘modern’ society

without caste and religion. Planning is thus as magical as some of the obstacles, resistances, and

‘facts on the ground’ that it encounters. These facts on the ground are often religious. Since space is

one of the elements of the sacred, urban planning has to deal with sacred spaces, such as cemeteries

and religious places of worship. Cities like Shanghai and Hanoi, for example, have built over

extensive cemeteries and since a sizeable part of the population of these cities believes in spirits

these areas are haunted and part of everyday speculation about sudden illness and accidents.

In some cities in Asia, like Beijing, Seoul, Bangkok, and Hanoi, urban planning encounters

ancient cosmologies. China’s capital Beijing has been for centuries the cosmic center of China,

ruled from the Forbidden City, organized according to the fengshui principles of yin and yang. When

the Communists took over, Mao Zedong personally decided to locate the government in the old city,

making use of this ancient conception of the cosmic center, but at the same time destroying the old

buildings. We see here a form of iconoclasm that is quite common, namely the appropriation of a

sacred place, destroying the previous religion and appropriating its sacred power for the new religion.

Tiananmen “had to be transformed from an insulated imperial quarter into an open space for political

activity” (Wu Hung, p. 9). However, ‘open’ only in a spatial sense, but not in the sense of

Habermas’s ‘Öffentlichkeit’. It became the square where the Party showed its ideological centrality

in the architecture as well as in the huge Mao Portrait that dominates the square and in its regular

manifestations, such as the Party Congress in the Great Hall of the People), but also the space for

challenging that hegemony in 1989. With the transformation of Tiananmen into a huge public square

(with the possibility of containing 600,000 people) Mao created a space for the demonstration of the

Party’s power, but occasionally the Party’s power is misunderstood by the Chinese as the People’s

power. Till today such mistakes are bloodily repressed.

Hanoi is similarly a cosmological center that has been taken over by communist power. As

in previous centuries the Vietnamese imitated the Chinese, but always with a twist of resistance.

Communism was meant to be a global model, but China developed its own brand and expected the

Vietnamese to follow it, but, as Ben Anderson observed in the first few pages of his Imagined

Communities, nationalism is stronger than internationalist communism. While North Vietnam has

maintained tributary relations with Beijing for centuries and there is no doubt about the significance

of the Chinese civilizational models, including Communism, avoidance and resistance are as strong

as imitation. The fact that China is so overwhelmingly close and powerful led Vietnamese

communists to emphasize difference and play out both leaders of Communism, the Soviet Union and

China, against each other. The Vietnamese distrust of Chinese power politics was confirmed in the

1979 War in which the Chinese tried to teach ‘the younger brother’ a lesson, as they had repeatedly

tried to do in the two-thousand years of Vietnamese- Chinese history. In a bizarre twist of history

today the Vietnamese are trying to connect to the US to balance China’s growing regional hegemony.

Hanoi is thus not an uncontested cosmological center of an empire, but the cosmological

center of what the neighboring Chinese empire has always considered to be a tributary state. This

cosmological struggle finds its way today in urban planning in Hanoi. The following vignette is one

of many illustrations of the translation of cosmological struggle into urban planning.

Wrestling with gods on To Lich River

The first time we met, Mr. T wanted to take us out for breakfast at the best Beef Noodle restaurant in

Hanoi at 7.30 am. It was a cold and rainy day in late December 2013. Naturally, we did our best to

turn down his culinary ice-breaking offer. In his late 60s, although retired he was still active in

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consulting the government and as a substantial side-activity heading a spirit-possession group.

There are hundreds of spirit-possession groups in Vietnam today, but Mr. T heads one of the most

educated and affluent ones. His group started with mediums who become possessed by spirits, Ho

Chi Minh spirit being the most recent among them. Lately it included scientifically interested and

spiritually engaged outsiders like Mr T. who believe in the existence of spirits and of their

importance for contemporary life. There are dozens of such groups operating in Hanoi alone and

striking is the number of leading scientists in them.

Mr T’s fascinating journey from scientism to spiritism became clear to us as we became close

acquaintances. Coming from an old influential intellectual family in Hanoi who chose the right side

of the revolution, Mr. T and his sisters were among “the 100 red seeds” (hat giong do) selected by the

Vietnamese communist party to be sent to Russia to be educationally and ideologically ‘germinated’

in the early 1960s. It was in Cuba and Sweden, two decades later, that Mr. T obtained a MA in civil

engineering, and a Ph.D in foundation engineering. In mid 1990s, all his education paid off; mr. T

became one of the most sought after experts for the reconstruction of the country. He was the founder

and first CEO of VIC, a large construction firm, a full professor at the prestigious Hanoi University

of Technology, and the vice-general director of Hanoi Construction Corporation, among other

prestigious positions.

In 2001, VIC bid and won a big contract to renovate a large part of Hanoi water ways. One

part of this project was to dredge and unclog To Lich river, one of Hanoi ancient water ways which

has now become a long stagnant open sewage. The task was given to Unit 12, under the direct

management of Mr.T’s good friend, Mr. C. In September 2001, Mr.C’s team began the dredging of

the river bed, the part passing Nghia Do ward in Cau Giay district. Things started to get spooky when

the workers unearthed 8 sets of human bones and various other relics like elephant ivories, bones and

teeth of horse and buffalos, metal weapons, knifes, needles more than a dozen of small ancient pot

scrolls, and numerous porcelains, some of which appeared to be from the 10th and 11th century.

Around where the bones were unearthed, they also found many poles cut from tropical hardwood

driven into the river bottom in short trigrams. Around the same time of the finding, one of the team’s

drilling trucks was suddenly pulled into To Lich’s black water. The driver survived by jumping out in

time but in the afternoon was suddenly hit by a severe epileptic attack. He only got better after his

family brought offerings and burned incense at the riverside to ask for forgiveness.

Terrified by the development, Mr. C got Mr. T’s permission to go to Hai Phong province (100km

from Hanoi) to request the help of a famous Taoist master, who reluctantly came to conduct a quick

ceremony and then quickly ran off, to neatly escape death from sudden illness a few months later. In

the following days, all workers of the unit were victims to epileptic attacks and nightmares, then their

families were also struck by one disaster after another which prompted most of them to quit from

working on the project. When mysterious and tragic accidents happened to many newly recruited

workers, Mr. T and the leaders of VIC had no choice but to stop the project. They then sponsored an

academic conference right on bank of the river to seek for possible answers from prominent

historians, archeologists, geomancers, as well as the director of Hanoi Historical Museum. After two

days of discussion, no conclusion was officially publicized, yet most participants agreed with the

conclusion of the late professor Tran Quoc Vuong, at the time the most prominent historian of

Vietnam culture and history.

What was unearthed from the river bed was, according to Prof. Vuong, the eight divinatory

trigrams of the Book of Changes laid out to battle a supreme vital force. Since the location of the

dredging coincided with the West Gate of the Ancient Dai La citadel (the former name of Hanoi),

this eight divinatory diagrams could be the one laid down by Cao Bien, the regional military

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governor (jiedushi) of Vietnam in the 9th

century. As the legend goes, Cao Bien was assigned the

military governor of Vietnam from 866 to 875 by the Tang emperor. Being a superbly knowledgeable

and skillful Taoist master, Cao Bien quickly detected the Kingly potency of Vietnamese landscape.

He spent a great deal of time travelling up and down the land and recorded in a secret diary a map of

dragon veins through which the universal energy flows which can be tapped to advance a personal or

national agenda. With such a map, Cao Bien’s ambition rose above satisfaction with being just the

military governor of Vietnam. He now began to make plan to carve out a kingdom of his own,

independent from the North.

As the first step of this ambitious plan, Cao Bien had the small rampart city called La Thanh

enlarged, reconstructed, and renamed Dai (Greater) La Thanh. However, the construction always

failed whenever it reached the city’s west gate, where To Lich encircled the outer city wall. Being a

skillful geomancer, Cao Bien quickly detected that the construction touched an extremely important

dragon vein, where universal energy was channeled down from Tan Vien mountain (Map 3 of Tan

Vien mountain’s position outside Hanoi). This energy is vital to the prosperity of Hanoi but if Cao

Bien wanted to ensure his family’s future domination in this land, the energy could not be allowed to

run lose, but had to be hidden by the most effective geomancy method. This meant the severing of

the supply of vital energy to the Vietnamese nation and thus ensuring China’s long term domination

over Vietnam. Professor Tran Quoc Vuong also warned the company leaders of thousands of ghost

soldiers (am binh) who remained around this spot and could be ruthless when it came to punishing

anyone who attempt to disturb the trigrams.

Although Prof. Vuong’s conclusion was accepted by VIC leaders, they had no choice but to

continue the dredging due to the binding condition of the contract that they had signed with the

project funders (the Vietnamese government and a number of international donors from Japan and

Korea). Besides trying to improve the technical and medical support for their newly recruited

workers, Mr. T went in person to request the help of Superior Venerable Thich Vien Thanh, a

Buddhist monk famous for his geomantic skill. After a careful examination of the situation, the monk

said that he would do what he was obligated to do despite foreseeing the tragic consequence that he

would suffer. Three months after an elaborated ritual that he conducted on the construction site, the

monk passed away without any illness.

Since mysterious and tragic mishaps continued, Mr. T and Mr. C sought for help from Master

Mao, a nationally famous spirit medium and a powerful exorcist of Four Palace religion (an

indigenized Taoist branch of Vietnam). After many requests, in august 2002, Master Mao finally

agreed to help conducting a ceremony praying for forgiveness and peace, so elaborate that it became

a public spectacle. After the ceremony, Master Mao warned them this ritual can only help them to

complete the project but can’t prevent misfortune that will befall on Mr. C and Mr. T’s family. Even

he himself, Master Mao said, might be badly affected by conducting this ceremony.

After the ceremony things seemed to progress just as master Mao predicted. After many

fainting spells, Master Mao ended up bedridden in a number of hospitals for a while. The

construction did progress positively and completed by the end of 2002. And tragedies indeed began

to occur to Mr. C and his family. He went almost bankrupt and had a succession of bad economic

years. His perfectly healthy father suddenly dropped dead, and his brothers and sister fell victims of

various tragic accidents. In early 2007, Protection of the Laws (báo Bảo vệ Pháp luật) a journal

belong to Vietnam Supreme Court, published a series of articles named ‘Wrestling with gods on To

Lich River’ (Thánh vật ở sông Tô Lịch). When the series included Mr.C’s detailed and lengthy

memoir, the stories of how the gods resided in To Lich River and, at that particular conjunction, were

punishing those who disturbed their millennial sleep went so viral that it prompted the Vietnamese

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government to shut the series down and fire the chief editor of the journal. A media storm had,

however, already been set in motion. “Wrestling with Gods on To Lich River” already became a

popular entry in the Vietnamese Wikipedia webpage and millions of hits appear when one puts the

title of the series in the Google search bar.

The rising dragon: national aspiration

What was discussed in the Vietnamese media was not just the spooky happenings, but also the whole

discourse about Hanoi’s urban planning from the past to the present in relation to its sacred

topography. The unearthing of human bones and relics from To Lich river and the subsequent

mishaps that construction Unit 12 suffered was, as most journalists and geomantic practitioners

interpreted it, yet another evidence of the sacredness of Hanoi topography which cannot be violated

at will. In a series of articles in various newspapers, blogs, and even on Hanoi municipal

government’s website224, architect and activist Tran Thanh Van, for example, presented a map

which she took from some French book (she did not give the reference) which shows how Hanoi is

the place where the globe’s vital energies converged.

This map shows the map of the globe’s largest and most important dragon vein in the shape of a

dragon itself. The dragon’s head rests on Himalaya Mountain (8,848 m at its peak), its long body

spread along Tibet down to India’s border with China, then cross the Yunnan plateau, passing the

Fanxipan peak of Hoang Lien Son mountain range of Laocai province and its tails spread on Red

224 http://hanoi.org.vn/planning/archives/81

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River delta before dipping into the Halong Bay in East Sea (or South China Sea) to reach its deepest

point of the vein in Mindanao Bay of Philippines (10.800m deep). This dragon vein is said to be

decisive to the fate of various nations living along it.

Vietnam is not an exception to this, since numerous geomancers and historians have pointed

out that the ups and downs of the nation’s history has always been connected to different ways

national leaders recognized and treat the dragon vein. For example, as the legend goes, in 1010 after

liberating Vietnam from China, Ly Cong Uan detected the walled city Dai La, rebuilt by Cao Bien as

mentioned above, as a seat of power much better suited to his ambition as the first King of the newly

independent Great Viet kingdom (Dai Viet). Although the folklore account tells us that it was the

sight of a dragon taking off that prompted the King to name his new capital Thang Long (the Rising

Dragon), historians and architects like prof. Tran Quoc Vuong and Mrs. Tran Thanh Van, among

many others, today are at ease to explain this choice in geomantic terms. Hanoi, as they say, is at the

center of the Red River delta and of the nation as the whole. According to the description of Ngô

Nguyên Phi, a geomancer, the topography of mountains and rivers in the region provides Hanoi the

“Bowing Mountains, Converging Rivers” position, which makes it an excellent kingly seat.

Map 2. Geomantic Structure of Thang Long, Hanoi, in “Bowing Mountains, Converging Rivers”,

retrieved from www. Ashui.com/forum, 05.06.2013

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Map 3: Urban Planning Map of Hanoi until 2020 (Source. www.hanoi.gov.vn)

More importantly, just 28 kilometers away from Thang Long citadel is the Ba Vi mountain, a

mountain suddenly emerging in the middle of the Red River plain to receive the energy sent down all

the way from the Himalaya. According to Vietnam popular folklore, Tản Viên Sơn Thánh, the Patron

God of the Vietnamese people reigns on Ba Vi Mountain and from there he has protected the nation

for numerous occasion, including an episode of punishing Cao Bien, the military governor

mentioned above for his intrusive intervention in Vietnam. Yet, by putting the eight divinatory

trigrams in the river Cao Bien had been successful in cutting off part of the energy flows from Ba Vi

mountain to Hanoi. King Ly Cong Uan himself praised this act and called Cao Vuong (Cao Bien’s

honorary title in the past) the founder of Hanoi. But today, in the heated anti-China spirit, Vietnamese

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historians, geomancers and spiritists, all condemned this act as the first attempt by a foreign force to

establish control over Vietnam. It was a curse with long impact on the Vietnamese nation.

Following the arrow pointing from Ba Vi Mountain to the Red River embracing Hanoi since

time immemorial is the Westlake, Thang Long’s thyroid crypt as Vietnamese geomancers call it.

West Lake was connected to To Lich River until part of the river was occluded and turned into roads

during the expansion of Hanoi by French colonial government. Such developments are now

compared in partly environmental, partly geomantic terms with choking Hanoi of its vital air.

Hanoi as sacred center of Vietnamese nationalism

On a windy and cold morning of 5 January 2013 we were driven to an old temple about 100 km from

Hanoi to the Chinese border. Mr. T, architect Tran Thanh Van, two big busses full of spirit mediums

and telepaths, dozens of professors, historians, and cultural activists were already waiting for us at

the destination. The group was quite fascinating, since it included retired top-scientists, most of

whom had been trained in the Soviet-Union, a number of former ambassadors, some rich project

developers, and a large number of relatively poor female spirit mediums with low education.

Here at the temple of Quy Mon Quan (The Ghostly Gate), the group organized a peculiar

ceremony of spirit-writing. According to Vietnamese history, Quy Mon Quan with its natural

geography was an ancient battle field where the Vietnamese had for countless occasions defeated and

killed hundreds of thousands of invading Chinese soldiers. Today, Vietnamese spiritists believe that

the ghosts of these Chinese soldiers remain in Vietnam and are the cause of all problems of

Vietnamese society. The ceremony was organized as a spiritual battle to finally defeat these ghosts,

and then as sort of ‘post-war court’ in which spiritists acted as judges to trial the ghosts. Those who

committed terrible crimes would be sentenced to ‘spiritual death’, those with less serious crimes

would receive different forms of punishment, then to be deported back to China. To achieve these

purposes, three thousands of spirit writing report (so thien) were written, some in advance, some

right during the ceremony then to be burned immediately afterward.

The spirit of nationalism and anti-Chinese sentiment dominated the day. The intellectuals

gathered here use geomantic principles to criticize current Vietnamese communist leaders of being

weak and incapable of leading the nation to the right destination. For instance, the new plan for

expanding and restructuring Hanoi, to be completed in 2020 will move the entire central

administrative body of the communist party to Son Tay town at the foot of Ba Vi Mountain. This

plan is according to the geomancers fatal for the future, because once the nation’s brain stays at the

foot of the mountain, the vital energy will fly over it instead of to it. This new plan was rumored to

be yet another of Beijing’s schemes to eliminate the Vietnamese nation.

Preliminary Conclusion

In the Herald Tribune’s OP-ED page of 7 June, 2013, an essay by Tuong Lai, a pseudonym of a

popular sociologist and blogger as well as a former advisor of two Vietnamese Prime Ministers

between 1991 and 2006 was translated from the Vietnamese. In this essay Tuong Lai states that

“Vietnam defeated the Mongols in the 13th

century and defeated other foreign aggressors during the

15th, 18th

and 20th

centuries. Our character was forged by these ferocious struggles. Yet today, in

defiance of international law and trampling on morality, China’s territorial claim stretches into the

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South China Sea like an ox tongue trying to swallow up waters that hold in their depths a vast

reserve of petroleum to feel an energy-hungry economy that dreams of attaining superpower status. It

is also a vital maritime artery that would enable China to achieve its ambitions.” This is mainstream

criticism of a weak Communist government that betrays Vietnam by bowing down to Chinese

demands and interests. It is so widely shared that it is a major threat to the current power

constellation. What is added to this is a spiritist understanding of deeper powers that have to be

summoned up to defend the Vietnamese nations. It is striking to see how many major scientists and

intellectuals who have made their career in the Communist Party and have been educated in

Communist countries are involved in the spiritist critique of the current government. The urban

planning of Hanoi, the seat of state power, is hotly debated in political and geomantic terms, and

these terms are not neatly separated.

Tam T.T. Ngo is a Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity. She was

recently awarded Ph.D. degree from VU, Amsterdam for a dissertation titled "The New Way: Becoming Protestant

Hmong in Contemporary Vietnam". She obtained a MA in Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology at

University of Leiden (2006), a Degree Msc in Comparative Asian Studies from the University of Amsterdam in 2004 and

a BA in Philosophy from Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Vietnam in 2002.

Peter van der VEER is Director at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Göttingen

and University Professor (Professor-at-Large) at Utrecht University. He also holds the Tata Chair in Social Sciences at

the Tata Institute for Social Science in Mumbai. Previously he was a Professor of Anthropology at the University of

Amsterdam and at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a Fellow of the Royal Dutch Academy of Arts and Sciences He

has been Chairman of the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) and Co-Chairman of the Indo-Dutch program in

Alternatives in Development (IDPAD). His major publications include Gods on Earth (Oxford University Press),

Religious Nationalism (University of California Press) and Imperial Encounters (Princeton University Press). Currently

his work focuses on the interface between culture, society and religion in India and China.

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In Light of Mass Apparitions:

National and Sectarian Imagination in Egypt Heo, Angie

MPI MMG

Today, I am going to speak about collective apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Egypt. These

phenomena of bluish and white light, always at the heights of church steeples and domes, gather

thousands of Muslims and Christians to the open streets. Historically, the first collective apparition

took place in Zeitoun of 1968 after the Arab-Israeli war of 1967. In the following years, a litany of

apparitions occurred - most famously at Edfu in 1982, Shobra in 1986, Assiut in 2001 and al-

Warraq in 2009. Because they take place at churches, these apparitions are often thought to be

‘Christian’ images, and indeed, the Coptic Church pours out a lot of effort into collecting witness

reports and confirming their status as ‘true’ or false.’ In this talk, I am going to focus on two

apparition-events: al-Warraq of 2009 and Zeitoun of 1968. My goal is to show you how visual

cultures of Marian apparitions shape both national and sectarian affiliations among Copts, depending

on their mass-mediated contexts and knowledge forms they produce.

First, who are Coptic Christians, or ‘the Copts’? Unlike in Korea, where Christianity is

associated with foreign presence – French Catholic or American Protestant for instance, Coptic

Orthodox Christianity is considered native to Egypt, with its founding father being St. Mark the

Evangelist. The story of Coptic Christianity’s break from ‘the rest of Christianity’ is commonly

told through the lens of Christological controversy in the early 4th

and 5th

centuries. Copts have

their own Coptic Pope and governing body of bishops, adhere to the intercession of saints and

inhabit a world of everyday miracles and wonderworkers (like many of Egypt’s Muslims).

In Egypt, if there is any issue that speaks to its politics of national division, it would not be that

of Cold War internationalism, but that of religious sectarianism. Currently, tensions between

Egypt’s Muslim majority and its Coptic Christian minority are on the rise. As a result, there is an

increasing political discourse of ‘sectarianism’ as a problem and obstacle to national unity. As the

largest religious minority in the Arab Muslim world, Copts have received significant international

attention after the Arab uprisings, especially Egypt’s revolution of 2011 which led to the momentous

downfall of Mubarak’s forty-year regime. In the wake of the Muslim Brotherhood’s success at all

election levels, Copts face a new era of uncertainty and insecurity – much of which includes

escalations of sectarian violence. Most recently in April 2013, for the first time in history, Muslim

attacks on the Patriarchate Cathedral in Cairo (the equivalent of the Vatican for Copts) were cause of

serious alarm and panic for the Coptic community.

How do we understand, maybe even account for, these developments? How do we gain

insight into the cultural politics on the ground, and in the air, which contribute to Muslim-Christian

tension in Egypt? I think visual histories of collective apparitions can help us advance some ground

to these questions. Here, I begin a couple years before the Tahrir protests began in full swing, only

some miles from Tahrir square across the Nile. In December 2009, the Virgin appeared in al-

Warraq, a gritty working-class district in northern Giza, known historically for its textile industries

and as a destination for rural migrants from the Upper Egyptian south. Al-Warraq is also

considered part of greater Cairo and is only a bridge away from Shobra, famous for its high density

of Coptic churches and Coptic residents.

As in many cities around the world, Cairo is an urban landscape rife with religious competition.

Historically speaking, al-Warraq is emblematic of territorial contests over public space and visibility.

The Virgin appeared at the Church of the Virgin and Archangel Michael on Nile Street, hovering

around its steeples and crosses. In 2002, two years after construction of the church was completed

in 2000, al-Hoda mosque next door extended its minarets upward and expanded its base outward.

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For Copts, the unequal politics for the building and repair of churches is one major sore point,

perhaps the biggest one. Somewhat expectedly, according to Egyptian state law, it is much easier

for Muslims to obtain permits to build and repair mosques. Copts, by contrast, must appeal to

governate, even presidential, levels of authority to secure the same for churches.

In this landscape, technologies of mass media enable the reproducible expansion of Marian

presence. Here, in this shrine to the Virgin within the Church of al-Warraq, forms of visual

iconography honor the apparition-event of 2009. There is something about Mary, or more

specifically, mass-mediated Marian form, that enables her travel far and wide. Copts understand the

Virgin to appear in ‘the apparitional pose’ (al-manẓar al-tagallī) – via not only collective apparitions

at churches, but also icons and print portraits all over. As many scholars note, this Marian image is

arguably of Roman Catholic origin, what is identified as the ‘Miraculous Mary’ or ‘Mary of

Miraculous Medal.’ Such iconic semblance of Marian forms across time and space speaks to a

cultural politics of ‘global Christianity.’ Through this politics of visual reproducibility, the Virgin is

perceived to effect territorial expansion.

Marian imagination is institutional in nature. When there is news of any collective apparition

in Egypt, the Coptic Church sets out to investigate whether or not it is true. So in the case of al-

Warraq, Pope Shenouda III and the two main bishops of Giza supervised the collection of witness

reports, photos and video-recordings. For this ‘church science’, numbers are crucial. Quoting the

words of one priest: ‘When there is one, ten, or 100 who say ‘no’, and then there is 1,000, 1

0,000, or 100,000 who say ‘yes’, who are you going to believe?’ Because high numbers

matter, the demand for Muslim witnesses of the apparition is crucial - what Arjun Appadurai refers to

as the ‘anxiety of incompleteness’ characteristic of minority politics everywhere. This is why Muslim

guarantors are key to Coptic Church confirmation. In al-Warraq, official reports identify the first

witnesses to be Muslim patrons of the street café next door to the church. These Muslims report

seeing ‘lights’, but don’t necessarily report that the ‘lights’ are Marian.

The science of ‘Muslim guarantee’ is a relatively new one, as ‘collective apparitions’ of the

Virgin are a relatively new phenomenon in Egypt. To remind us again, the first collective

apparition occurred in the suburb of Zeitoun in 1968. The apparition in Zeitoun was considered a

‘national’ event, making headlines in state newspapers. The first witnesses, or ‘Muslim guarantors’

were public transportation workers who spotted the lights on the church rooftop from below.

According to reports, Muhammad ‘Atwa pointed at her, yelling ‘Hey lady! Don’t jump!’ and then

later discovered that his gangrene-afflicted finger had been healed. President Nasser was also

reported to have submitted his eyewitness report. Consequently, the Virgin of Zeitoun was

institutionalized as a Muslim-Christian image of Arab national significance.

It was the June 1967 war which provided the contextual frame for the Zeitoun apparitions.

This war, referred to as ‘the setback’, was decisively traumatic for the Arab nation-states of Egypt,

Syria and Jordan, all having suffered significant territorial losses. These losses included holy lands

like Sinai and Jerusalem. The Virgin’s appearance in Zeitoun, in May of the following year, was

taken to be a divine message to the Arab world. According to one Lebanese newspaper, ‘the

repetition of the Virgin’s appearance confirms that the miracle will continue until the return of Arab

Jerusalem and its liberation from Zionist terrorism’ (al-Anwar, 12 May 1968). So here, we see an

instance when Marian apparitions served to shore up national levels of solidarity. Zeitoun

concerned political affiliations even much larger than Egypt, directed toward Arab imaginaries of

belonging. Likewise, the image of the church in Zeitoun, as the Virgin’s selected site of appearance,

was understood to be a key part of this national imagination of territorial recovery.

Of course, not everyone was happy about the Marian apparitions. In 1969, during the period

when the Zeitoun apparitions continued, the prominent Syrian Marxist Sadek Jalal al-Azm published

Critique of Religious Thought (for which he was later jailed on charges of ‘inciting sectarianism’).

In one of its chapters, he levied charges of ‘deception’ against the Arab media which he argued had

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used visual technologies to fool the public into believing in the reality of the apparitions. This

‘illusion’, as he called it, distracted Arabs from the reality of their military defeat. The history of

collective apparitions, as politicized images of technology, thus includes a history of accusations – of

lies, artifice and denials.

When it came to the apparitions in al-Warraq, some thirty years later, charges of artificial

fabrication became somewhat of a public industry. However, unlike Zeitoun where the Virgin

reached a ‘national’ audience, al-Warraq turned into a place of sectarian contention between Muslims

and Christians. In this new context of Marian apparitions, Muslims were understood to be the ones

charging Christians with religious manipulation and deception. As websites went up and talk

permeated the streets, the idea that Copts were making things up - so as to validate their churches

and future church building - became more prevalent. These suggestions, however subtle, were

enough rattle Coptic priests and parishioners.

Let me illustrate how Muslim suspicions hit the ground in more everyday settings. In late

December of 2010, I rode in a taxi with a Coptic university student to visit al-Warraq. As we

bumbled along, I asked the driver who was Muslim if he had heard of the Virgin visiting our

destination. He explained to me that if the Virgin had truly appeared, she would have come in a

fixed place and time, ‘like the moon appears in the sky every night’, so that everyone would know it

was she. He added, ‘not at a different church every year’ and concluded that the apparition was a

‘trick’ produced by lasers. Clearly discomforted, the girl next to me interjected that lasers are not

capable of producing images of light that move as quickly as the apparitions had moved. And with

that, the conversation abruptly ended. Later on, as we walked into the church, she added to me that

lasers also require screens for receiving their light rays, characterizing the driver’s logic as ‘non-

sense.’

Where did this Coptic student get the idea that lasers are not as fast as the apparitions, or that

lasers require screens that And so, the plot thickens. With the onset of laser tech talk, new Coptic

Christian forms of knowledge emerged and grew. One key player in this growing industry of

knowledge, named a theology of ‘defense’, is Father Abdel Masih al-Basit (AMB, ‘Servant of Christ

the Simple One’) who wrote a book in 2010, Apparitions of the Virgin in Egypt: Between Truth and

False Allegations. Designed for a primarily Coptic readership, one of the book’s goals is to debunk

charges of laser usage at the church. In it, AMB mimetically draws on the science of physics in

order to make foolishness out of Muslim imaginings of lasers.

It is true that public fora for exchanging religious knowledge among Muslims and Christians

are old hat in Coptic memory. However, there is something quite distinctive about these new styles

of Christian response to Muslim suspicion. In AMB’s visual aids for debunking lasers, standard

images of the church space are presented to the reader over and over again: ‘Problem #2: If there had

been a laser, then the apparition would have made an uneven appearance in the direction of the light.

Problem #5: If there had been a laser, there would have had to have been a dynamically moving

screen to capture the image.’ Since uneven images and dynamic screens were not present, so the

argument goes, laser charges are false. With the popularization of apologetic pedagogy, images like

these are currently harnessed toward a spatially imagined battle waged between Muslims and

Christians.

To wrap up quickly now, I’d like to gesture toward the broader spatial scales of sectarian

contention in which apparitions occur. These days, when rapid escalations of sectarian contest

occur over churches all over Egypt, some Copts have explained to me that they get very emotional

about protecting their churches. These public and political attachments do not apply merely to al-

Warraq. Weeks before Egypt’s Revolution, for example, a nearly finished church in al-‘Omraniyya,

in southern Giza, sparked clashes between the police and its Coptic parishioners. Months after

Mubarak stepped down and the state military took over, a more gruesome showdown between army

tanks and Coptic protestors left twenty-eight dead – again, over imaginings of a disputed church,

185

some 900 kilometers south in a village of Aswan.

Given the kind of force that the church-image can convey, what ‘the church’ is and what it

stands for should not be taken for granted. Marian apparitions, give rise to charges that lasers are

deployed at churches – more specifically, at ‘a different church every year’ and never at a mosque.

For both Muslims and Christians, there is also the anticipation that apparitions of the Virgin will

occur again, in the future at another endangered church somewhere. Understanding what lies in the

collective imagination of Muslims and Christians when this happens is important to understanding

how the cultural politics of sectarianism develop and change.

Angie Heo is a Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in

Goettingen. She received her PhD in Anthropology from UC Berkeley and enjoyed a full-time teaching term at Barnard

College, Columbia University. Her research interests include historical and cultural approaches to the study of

Christianity, media and politics.

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Caste and the human: Aspiration, reality and millennial eschatology

Roberts, Nathaniel

MPI MMG

In rural contexts the division between Dalits and caste people comprises both symbolic and political-

economic dimensions. The symbolic dimension, despite coding Dalits as outsiders and uniquely

bad, is also often seen as simultaneously performing an integrative function. Dalits are enlisted to

play pre-determined roles in village rituals, and even degrading tasks such as removal of dead cows

and human excrement have been analyzed as integrative, insofar as they make Dalits symbolically

indispensible to the caste order as a whole. For Dalits’ performance of ritually impure tasks is the

condition of possibility of others’ ritual purity. Traditionally, moreover, whole Dalit families were

tied to particular plots of land and to the caste men whose land it was, and the Dalits of a particular

cheri [=untouchable ghetto] were collectively tied to whole villages. And even today, Dalit laborers

do not approach landed caste employers as abstract subjects, but as ones whose identity and entire

being is defined in advance by their inherited status as Dalit. The intrinsically antagonistic relation

seen by marxian class theory to inhere in the labor relation is thus mediated by personalistic ties and

caste ideology.

In the urban milieu it is often said that there is no caste. While this is not entirely true,

Dalits are to a certain degree anonymous in public space. Their relations with employers,

shopkeepers, money lenders, and so on, are not explicitly mediated by caste. In the urban context it

is possible, in ways it simply is not in rural ones, for Dalits to claim to be free of caste—to be merely

human. This chapter examines the complexities of this claim and the universalistic moral logic it

rests on. Here Dalits seek to reverse the ideology that describes them as uniquely bad, by claiming

an intrinsic relationship to an intrinsically moral human community of global dimension, from which

caste people are excluded. In reality, the people of Anbu Nagar claim, they have no caste at all;

they are simply “the poor.” Caste people, who they prefer to describe in class terms as “the

privileged” [vacati uṭaiyavaṅka; lit. “those who have comforts”] or “the rich” [paṇakkāraṅka],

exclude themselves from universal humanity by their very refusal to recognize the humanity of

others and by the pride [perumai] that causes to set themselves apart. Believing they are superior,

other Indians in fact reveal their own unique wickedness.

Foreigners play an important structural role in this counter-hegemonic discourse. Slum

dwellers claim that their own basic goodness stems, not on any inherited characteristic (as per caste

ideology), but simply from their own bare humanity. This requires the existence of a broader

humanity, beyond India’s borders, who are also good. Unlike in nationalist discourse, wherein

foreignness and foreign influence is intrinsically, these slum dwellers envision foreigners as their

other selves—as benevolent allies from whom they have been artificially separated

Foreign money

Not long after arriving in Anbu Nagar I caught wind of rumor that certain pastors had received

“foreign money.” At this early stage in my research all I knew about conversion in contemporary

India was what I had learned from newspaper reports, and I accepted at face value the idea that

foreign money was being used to lure converts. I was also certain that conversion must cause some

kind of social conflict, or, in an area like this where most converts were women, trouble between

187

husbands and wives. I assumed my research would be to ethnographically flesh out how these

conflicts played out, how people coped in their aftermath, and how a local community struggles to

maintain its moral bearing under the onslaught of monetized proselytism riding the wave of global

capital. I pursued “foreign money” rumors with great energy, in the same way I sniffed around for

any sign of conflict between Christians and Hindus, or husbands and wives, over matters of religion.

Intra-slum conflict, and it relation to religion, is a major theme in the next four chapters. In this

chapter I introduce the world of the slum itself, its physical and social characteristics, and the moral

contours of everyday life there.

When I asked pastors about foreign money, and who was receiving it, the two names that

consistently came up were Pastor Sentil Kumar, and Pastor Vijay.225 Other pastors regretted that

they themselves had not also been contacted by foreign donors interested in supporting their ministry,

but consoled themselves with the idea that God chooses to bless each of his servants in different

ways. We can not presume to know His plans. Pastor Sentil Kumar, I discovered, had received a

one-time donation to build a new church building. And compared to most churches in the slum, his

was indeed impressive. Where others’ were constructed in the same manner as typical slum

dwellings—typically either palm thatch or corrugated asbestos sheeting fastened to frames of tied-

tied wooden poles—Sentil Kumar’s church had “pukka” (masonry) walls and was bigger.

Figure 1: Typical church interior

The foreign organization that had paid for his new church later sent someone to take a photo

of the complete building, which they published in a newsletter. He had had no contact with them

since, but helpfully dug out a copy of the issue of their newsletter carrying a photograph of his

church. He was proud to have been featured in a foreign publication, which he interpreted as

world-wide recognition of the good works he was doing for the people of Kashtippattinam. The

225

All personal names of pastors and other slum dwellers are pseudonyms.

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purpose, he explained, was to tell the whole world about his ministry and about the many miracles

God was performing among the poor. The newsletter was in English, and reading it one might get

the impression that Sentil Kumar’s entire ministry was be credited to their organization, and even

that he himself was a product of their global program. He was perplexed when I told him this.

“But I built up this congregation myself, only with God’s help. Those foreign evangelists had

nothing to do with it. Apart from the new building, everything was paid for by the people in my

flock were with me from before, some from the very beginning of my ministry. The foreign donors

heard of my good works. They came here and they saw that our church was crowded with believers.

There was no where to sit, and the roof leaked when it rained. They wanted to help me by building

this better church for us to worship in. That is all.” I double-checked his story with other pastors,

especially his rivals. Everything he had told me was true.

Pastor Vijay, the other pastor rumored to have received foreign money, turned out to be just a

particularly charismatic pastor, whose superior church building was fully paid for by donations from

his own congregation. Rumors of foreign money appear merely to have been a way for less popular

pastors to explain Vijay’s relative success. (Rivalry among pastors is addressed in chapter four.)

When questioned more closely other pastors admitted that they had no positive knowledge that he

had ever receive foreign funds, and that this was merely a matter of speculation. Importantly, this

speculation carried no undertone of moral critique; pastors did not see foreign money as a bad thing.

Among ordinary slum dwellers, by contrast, rumors of foreign money did indeed have

distinctly moralizing tone. But the terms of critique and the assumptions on which it was based

were quite different from that of elite national discourse. First, there was no sense either that there

was anything morally suspect about money itself or that money ought not be mixed with religion, as

in the dominant national discourse on conversion. Money was not a bad thing, but something very

good! Money was exactly what slum dwellers lacked, and desperately wanted. This was

something they talked about this all the time. There was nothing immoral about money—money

was not immoral, people were. And the paradigmatic form of immorality in the slum was the

refusal of those with money or other necessities of life to share freely with those in need. Second,

there was absolutely no sense that the foreignness of the money made it somehow morally tainted.

Quite the contrary.

When I asked people in Anbu Nagar whether they’d ever heard of local pastors offering

money or gifts to potential converts they scoffed. Like most Indians they had heard rumors that

pastors did this elsewhere in India, and they had no doubt that these rumors were true. But they did

not see it as a bad thing. “They say Christians are doing that [i.e. offering gifts to those who

convert] in other places,” one Hindu man laughed, in response to my queries about the practice, “but

around here all the pastors do is take!” Other slum dwellers interpreted the absence of such

“programs” in Kashtappattinam—programs they believed were being made available to potential

converts elsewhere in India—as yet another symptom of the area’s neglect. “Ha! Do you think

anyone cares that much about us?” one woman commented, “do the politicians care? Do the

pastors?”226 On the contrary, the fact that none of the local, slum-born pastors made such offers was

226

I hasten to add that, despite widespread assumptions to the contrary, it is unlikely that missionaries anywhere in India

have in fact offered bribes to potential converts. At any rate, no credible evidence has ever been produced of the sort of

quid pro quo arrangements that are frequently alleged to exist. The idea that conversions undertaken for the sake of

material gain are illegitimate was introduced into India by Christian missionaries themselves—who, in the context of

perpetual competition between Protestants and Catholics as well as among rival Protestant mission societies in the 19th

century took to denouncing the converts of their rivals as mere “rice Christians” (Viswanath 2006, Viswanath 2013). As

I have explained in the Introduction, idea that material motives in matters of religious conversion is intrinsically and

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cited as an example of how stingy they were. Where national public sphere discussions treat the

alleged mixing of material and religious goods as a wholly illicit practice, and as a sign that Christian

conversion efforts are not sincerely religious but driven by “ulterior motives,” the people of Anbu

Nagar took local pastors’ failure or offer gifts as evidence of their insincerity. For if they really

cared about local people’s souls, surely they would put their money where their mouths were!

This is not to say gifts in cash or kind would have actually induced anyone to giving up one

set of gods for another. For reasons laid out in chapter three, the idea that any sane person would

undertake so serious a decision on so flimsy a basis was simply inconceivable to slum dwellers. It

was not that doing so would have been immoral or irreligious. Just impossibly foolish, the stuff of

madness. But that did not mean pastoral gifts to potential converts would have been meaningless,

or unappreciated. Such gifts would be irrelevant to evaluating the merits of different gods. Their

significance lay in what they said, or what their absence said, about the character of the pastor

himself.

To all outward appearances, most pastors were as poor as anyone else in the slum, though a

few had had better jobs than the average slum man prior to receiving their call.227 So the fact that

they failed to give gifts to potential converts, as better-off pastors in other parts of India were

assumed to do, was not necessarily held against them. But the idea that there were foreign

organizations who might be sending money to Indian pastors was fuel for intermittent, low level

speculation in and around Anbu Nager. Thus if a local pastor somehow came into possession of a

brand new bicycle, as happened on one occasion during my stay, people might begin to get

suspicious. A week or two later, this particular pastor’s granddaughter came to church in a dress no

one recalled ever having seen before. Shortly thereafter, someone mentioned to me that someone

else had noticed that this pastor’s wife’s white sari looked unusually bright. Women in the

congregation had begun to wonder: was that the same sari she’d been wearing all month? Did

anyone recall seeing that one before, or had the Pastor gone and bought her a brand new one? It is

not easy to tell with a white sari— one can never be sure—but didn’t hers used have a small tear in it

somewhere? And didn’t the pastor himself get a new set of dentures earlier this year? Or has he

always had those?228

universally illegitimate (and not just according to Protestant theology) was popularized in India by the anti-conversion

writings of M.K. Gandhi. 227

Pastor Yesudas, for instance, had had a low- to mid-level job in a government printing press. A few others had had

jobs of a similar nature, whereas others been manual laborers. 228

The bicycle, I was able to determine, was not purchased with foreign funds. It had been a gift in kind to the pastor by

a well wisher. And it was not brand new, but only somewhat new. The dentures were not new at all, but in fact quite old.

The pastor saved them for special occasions.

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Figure 2: The pastor's two teeth

Slum dwellers kept close watch on one another, and even ordinary slum dwellers were at

pains to downplay any bit of good fortune so as not to appear to be pulling selfishly saving while

others were in need. If suspicion fell especially strongly on Pastors, however, it was only partly

because they lived on the donations of their congregation—donations that were meant primarily to

cover church expenses and only the basic necessities of life for the pastor his family. The more

significant source of suspicion was the idea that a pastor might have somehow been contacted by

foreigners interested in sending money. And foreign money, everyone was quite certain, was

money that had been sent to help the poor.

Far from carrying a whiff of disapproval in the slum, the fact that this money was “foreign”

was precisely the guarantee of its moral purity. It was money that had been sent with loving intent.

The tone moral critique I initially detected in talk of foreign money had to do with the possibility of

this loving money having been intercepted and, instead of using it had been intended, diverted to

selfish ends. What appeared to go without question in the slum is the assumption that people living

outside of India would want to help them, if only they knew how badly they were suffering. We

will return to the myth of the benevolent foreigner at the end of the chapter. At this point I want to

say only a few words about my own position in slum society, and to begin to make sense of why

my own conspicuous lack of charity did not immediately call this myth into question.229

229 I did what I could to live up to live up to what was expected of me, though it was obvious to everyone that I could

have afforded to do more. The problem, as I saw it, was that if I had gotten into the role of dispensing cash, even in the

form of small “loans,” would not have stopped until I was wiped me out. And the same would have been true if instead

of dispensing cash (which is what they really needed) I had directly bought for them the things they required. But their

needs were ultimately far greater than my resources. So in order to at least partially meet my moral obligations to those

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In Anbu Nagar those who had anything extra—food, cash, a kitchen utensil—were expected

to share freely with those who lacked. For the most part this is exactly what they did, and if

anything they were generous to a fault. The demand to share made accumulating any kind of

household saving difficult, though there were a few morally acceptable techniques to get around this.

In the next chapter we examine some of these techniques, as well as the actual forms that quotidian

sharing took. We will also examine some of the hidden, morally problematic gaps that existed

between expectation and reality. But what is important to stress at this point that the injunction to

care was not just a pious wish, and that it extended in principle to any person who was in need.

The universality of the imperative to share was of axiomatic significance to the moral

thinking of the people of Anbu Nagar. The real existence of such an imperative, was absolutely

central to their sense of themselves, and indeed, to their ideas of what it means to be human, as I will

explain below. The failure of other Indians—politicians, shop owners, employers—to care for

people like themselves was a defining problem for slum dwellers, and a perpetual complaint, and a

recurrent them in their own moral self-narration. Foreigners were believed to be just like

themselves, and unlike other Indians, in their spontaneous human desire to care for others. There

was no empirical basis for the image they had of foreigners. I was the first and only foreigner most

slum dwellers had ever met. Although one can speculate about possible historical sources of the

benevolent foreigner myth among Dalits such as these.230 But completely irrespective of any

historical experience, the benevolent foreigner was a structural necessity of slum moral discourse,

and of their self-definition. They themselves were moral, they claimed, not because they were in

some way unique. It was extremely important for these slum dwellers—for reasons stemming from

their systematic denial of caste ideology—that they themselves were merely human. They

possessed no inherited character traits apart from those all human being shared. They had no

special traditions or unique sensibilities. Feeling the way they felt for others was simply part of

what it was to be a human being.

So what happens when an actual, living breathing foreigner steps into there midst and fails to

play the part? Not much! Despite my failure to do all that I could to help them, and despite the

fact that I remained a conspicuously rich and comfortable man surrounded by those who were

terribly poor, the people of Anbu Nagar remained certain that if only people in foreign countries were

made aware of their plight, they would find a way to help. Their confidence in the benevolence of

I lived with I did two things. First, I made a policy of providing needed medicines to anyone who asked, without limit.

Whatever sorts of pills or ointments or tonics anyone needed, I would buy for them at the local pharmacy. This was

feasible. People’s need for medicine is inherently self limiting, and thanks to the Government of India’s highly

commendable rejection of international patent regimes, medicine in that country is very cheap. The second way I tried

to help was by offering evening English classes, for children and young adults, on alternating days. This was their idea,

not mine, and demand was high. Parents were eager for their children to learn English, possession of which they

correctly recognized as a vital symbolic asset in India, separating the elite from everyone else. My young adults class

was sadly smaller. First, by this age most slum dwellers have accepted that they are destined to be either manual

laborers or, in the case of women who worked, house cleaners. Only those with at least 10 years of education—a rarity

in the slum—can hope for more. And in the face of dwindling opportunities, and of doors being repeatedly shut in their

face by potential employers who learn their caste, even those who have made it this far in their schooling soon give up

their dreams of social advancement. There were some exceptions, and two of my students were going to college.

Both were second generation ex-slum dwellers (i.e. the children of former slum dwellers who had moved out of the slum

and into slightly better accommodations, keeping their true caste background a secret from neighbors).

230 Dalits in South India did indeed benefit under colonial rule, most prominently under missionary tutelage, but also

from the fact that they were able to access new forms of employment as butlers, cooks, soldiers, syces, craftsmen and

other roles under foreign employers who did not observe untouchability or distinguish among equally qualified

employees on the basis of caste (Olcott 1902; Viswanath 2014 and personal communication).

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foreign peoples was too robust, too central to their world view, for one puzzlingly ungenerous

foreigner to shake. I did what I felt I could for them, and I will explain the ways I attempted to

defray my moral debts in a moment. But what was clearly more important to them was that I

somehow get the word out, that I tell the rest of the world how they were living. Countless times I

was made to solemnly swear that one day I would tell others, the people of my own country, how

poor they were and how much they suffered.

I found this rather disturbing. For the reality I was unable to persuade them of was that

foreigners are no more caring than Indians, and thus that the world is basically indifferent to their

plight. They found such claims on my part simply unbelievable. To them it was obvious that any

normal human being would be moved by their suffering, and would surely find some way to help

them. The real problem was just that they were trapped within India, and therefore the broader

humanity remained unaware of conditions under which they were living. My efforts to convince

them them their hopes would surely be disappointed were taken not as a judgment on humanity

itself—for the goodness of a universal humanity existing outside India’s borders was apparently

beyond question—but as suggesting I did not regard them as worthy of care! And yet they were

certain I did not really feel this way, and was merely being facetious. Although they were

completely willing to accept my claim that there are inequalities everywhere, and not just in India,

they found it impossible to believe that the rich elsewhere could be as indifferent to the poor as the

rich were in India.

This was evidently a topic of considerable interest to many who lived in the slum, and I was

often drawn into such conversations. In both my memories and my notes they take on a repetitive

quality, sooner or later turning to me. “But you are here!” If foreigners were really no different

than Indians, I was asked, how could I account for my own presence in the slum? The very fact that

I had come to do research in Anbu Nagar could thus be used to refute me. “You talk to us.” “You

listen.” “You see us.” The rich and the privileged in India did not “see” them, slum dwellers

frequently complained, by which they meant that they did not see them as human beings. “Seeing,”

in this sense, is a key concept in the moral cosmology of slum dwellers, and later in this chapter I

will attempt to unpack it. It was difficult in such situations that the “rich” the “privileged” were

simply euphemisms for caste people. Thus for example I was often also told such things as, “no

rich person will ever come inside a slum,” “no rich person will ever eat our food.” Commensality

restrictions and spatial segregation are classic examples of caste, and have nothing to do with

whether or not someone is literally rich or not.231 Moreover, although virtually all foreigners were

believed by the people of Anbu Nagar to be both rich and privileged in the literal sense of these

terms, they thought it entirely natural that foreigners would be willing to enter the place that they

lived and to receive food from them. The fact that I, an actual foreigner, had unexpectedly come to

live in Anbu Nagar was thus empirically surprising, but it did not in any way challenge their world

view. On the contrary, it seemed only to confirm it.

“But I am here,” I told them again and again, “because I am studying for a degree! And a

requirement of that degree is that I go and live somewhere, with people very different than myself,

for an extended period. I am here to study you. I listen to you because that is part of my

231 There were a few Dalit ex-slum dwellers who had made it into the middle class, thereby achieving a status that

placed them comfortably within the ranks of those who would certainly be regarded as both rich and privileged by slum

standards, if these terms were in fact being used literally. Yet such people were not normally described as either

paṇakkaraṅka or vacatiyuṭaiyavaṅka. And unlike those who were described as the rich/privileged, middle class

relatives of slum dwellers both visited the slum and took food from slum dwellers.

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research.” They were not convinced. They accepted my story, so far as it went, but they were

sure there was more to it than that. “But you really do care,” they insisted. “You don’t just listen.

You see us.” Besides, they were quite familiar with what it meant to be studied; government census

workers would, every ten years, come to the slum to ask them questions, and NGO workers had also

conducted surveys there. None of these people accepted food from them, or remained in the slum

any longer than they had to. The fact that the way I was studying them entailed actually living with

them for a long period of time meant that it was a fundamentally different kind of “study” than they

were used to, one intrinsically based on care. Or so it seemed to them. And the fact that it was a

foreign university that had mandated I do this research only confirmed that this was the case!

For my own part I continued to maintain that their faith in me, and in humanity, was

fundamentally misplaced. But I promised many people in Anbu Nagar that I would tell the rest of

the world about the conditions under which they lived, and I will now discharge that promise. In

describing the physical conditions of slum life I will organize my description around my own

experiences living there. The fact of the matter is, however, that my life was in several key respects

more comfortable than theirs, and along the way I will indicate the ways other peoples’ situations

differed from mine.

A word apart?

The people of Anbu Nagar assume that between themselves and other people there is a clear and

unbridgeable gap. This is manifest, for example, in the dichotomous terminology they use to divide

other Indians into “the poor” and “the privileged.” In purely economic terms, it seems more likely

that they are close to the end of what is in fact a continuum. But sociologically there may indeed be

a gap of exactly the type they perceive. Similarly, the physical space of the slum is—in their view

anyway—radically distinct. I am skeptical that there is any clear line that would allow us to

distinguish, on the basis of physical characteristics alone, between slum and very poor non-slum

neighborhoods. What counts as a slum is, at least in the words of official reports of the Tamil Nadu

Slum Clearance Board, an inherently subjective matter. And yet there was a pronounced sense

among residents of Anbu Nagar that they and others like them were being unfairly treated. In what

follows I describe what life was like there at a very basic material level. The way they were

allowed to live seemed to them simply inhumane. The means existed to improve their living

conditions, and the fact that more was not being done for them was a source of outrage.

The first thing to make clear is that Anbu Nagar is in many ways a much better place to live

than most other slums in the city, and that this is one of the reasons I chose it. For unlike most

slums, which are illegal squatter colonies on marginal or unused lands, Anbu Nagar was a “settled

slum.” That is to say, the people who lived there (or there predecessors) had been given titles to the

land, which was divided into small but comfortable 95 square meter plots. The original settlers,

many of whom were still present, had been relocated to Anbu Nagar from an illegal squatter colony

near the harbor, where the men at that time worked. The biggest advantage to it being a settled

slum was that residents were free to build permanent and flame-proof dwellings. The majority of

the slums in Chennai are illegal, and are tolerated only so long as those living there make no

permanent claim on the land by constructing solid dwellings for themselves. Thus unlike other

slums, where people live under thatch or plastic tarpaulins, a bit more than half of Anbu Nagar’s

dwellings had roofs made of tile, corrugated asbestos sheeting, or poured cement. Given that

almost every year one or two slums in Chennai is destroyed by fire, flame-proof roofing is a

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significant amenity.232 The streets in Anbu Nagar are also considerably wider than in other slums.

Anbu Nagar comprised two main streets, each a bit less than 100 meters in length, and two much

shorter cross streets. Illegal slums, by contrast, are a maze of narrow footpaths. Finally, roughly

half of Anbu Nagar was connected to some sort of underground septic system. I lived in this part.

Beginning from about 10 meters up the street from where I lived, liquid shit stagnated in a narrow

maggot-filled culvert known as a cākkaṭai, running down either side of the street, inches from the

thatched walls of some of my neighbors homes. During heavy rains cakkatais would overflow,

filling the street and seeping into adjacent houses.

Figure 3: sewage canal (cakkaṭai) running alongside house

232

These fires are routinely blamed, in the local edition of newspaper, on slum dwellers’ poverty and lack of foresight.

But the lack of flameproof roofing is not primarily the result poverty. It is not an economic effect, but a political one.

The moment slum dwellers in any of the city’s thousands of illegal slums tries to erect a solid structure they are promptly

evicted. So long as they do not do so, they are protected by one of the innumerable political operatives who have

connections to the ruling party, and who mediate between the owner of the land on which the slum sits—whether a

private entity or the state—and those who make their home there.

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Figure 4: cakkaṭai close-up

The original plots had been long since subdivided, each now accommodating some half-

dozen or more dwellings. The plot on which I lived accommodated 6 households and a total of 21

residents. The interior of my own house, which I rented at market rate for Rs 400 per month, was

13 feet long and just under 8 feet wide. The floor was slightly below ground level and made of

poured concrete; a two inch lip prevented water from flowing in during the rainy season, which was

a good thing because, like most slum dwellers, we slept on the floor. The walls were masonry, and

the roof was made of ceramic tiles laid over a wooden cross pieces. I lived in that space with my

assistant Sagayaraj. The dwellings on both sides were slightly smaller than ours. To the right

lived Anbu, a casual labor, with his wife and small daughter. To the left lived a family of five,

including Meena, a 16 year old we will meet in the next chapter.

It was very hot in the slum and there was little natural shade. After a day baking in the sun,

tile roofs retain a lot of heat and my neighbors preferred to sleep outside, either in the street or in the

rubble-filled vacant lot next door, whenever possible. For reasons I will come to, I remained

indoors, and Sagayaraj followed my lead. I brought impractical white sheets to sleep on, which

proved impossible to keep clean. The slum was infested with mosquitos. In my first week in

Anbu Nagar I awoke every morning to discover two or three small red bloodstains on my sheets,

which I knew from previous experience were from from engorged mosquitos I had crushed in my

sleep. In addition to the red stains there were always some half dozen brown ones, which I

interpreted as the blood of mosquitoes killed earlier in the night; the lighting our room was not good,

and I did not examine these stains carefully. In such extreme heat, I though to myself, blood must

brown quickly.

Wary of contracting malaria, I purchased mosquito netting for myself and Sagayaraj. The

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next morning we discovered that true source of the brown “blood” stains. Atop our mosquito nets

were many small turds that had evidently been dropped by mice crawling around in the rafters above.

I never actually saw these mice, but every morning throughout my fieldwork I would collect and

dispose the evidence of their nightly movements.

As I would soon learn, there were just one of three species of rodent living in Anbu Nager.

At least once per week Sagayaraj and I would awake to the sound of small rats scampering around

our room, probably looking for food. They were able to leap through the air, and once one fell on

my net after attempting to get to a bag of food we had hung from a long piece of string from the

rafters. Often they would knock over our stainless steel cooking vessels, which would fall to the

floor with a loud crash. Whenever they came I would shout at them and use a flashlight I kept

under my pillow to scare them away, which usually worked pretty well. Yet I found these nighttime

visitations highly unnerving, and I would lay awake full of adrenaline long after they had left, alert to

any small sound. I knew they were probably more afraid of me than I of them, but I remained

terrified one would accidentally stray inside my net. And what about rabies?

The third type of rodent was more frightening still, and the reason I preferred to remain

indoors despite the heat. This was the peruccāli. I saw my first peruccali shortly after coming to

Anbu Nagar, while on my way to pee in the night, and its body was about a foot long, not including

tail. In Indian English the peruccali is referred to as a “bandicoot,” but it is actually not a bandicoot

at all (a type of marsupial), but a very large species of rat, the Bandicota bengalensis. Such a

monster could not have fit under the crack of our door, and I preferred to take my chances with the

smaller rats than face one of them. According to my neighbors the peruccali is not a predator, but

they have been known to kill chickens, cats, and even dogs. They also occasionally attack children,

and for this reason families that sleep outside arrange themselves in a formation with adults on the

outside and small children in the middle.

Were there really more rodents (or flies or mosquitoes) in Kashtappattinam than in the city’s

non-slum areas? I know of no ecological studies that could answer such questions definitively.

But slum dwellers themselves were quite certain, not only that the place they lived was far worse

than any non-slum neighborhood, but that this was neither natural nor inevitable. It stemmed very

straightforwardly from the fact that “the rich” (read: caste people) did not see them as fully human.

Certainly it was true that there were an incredible number of flies in Anbu Nagar, far more

than I had experienced outside of the slum. And this could be easily explained by the presence of

open sewage. Likewise, if there were indeed more rodents in the Kashtappattinam than elsewhere,

the reason was not hard to guess. For a very conspicuous difference between slum and non-slum

neighborhoods in Chennai, even very poor ones, was the huge amounts of garbage that were allowed

to accumulate on the sides of roads and in any open space. And it seemed to substantiate slum

dwellers’ allegations. For the presence of so much garbage was not because slum dwellers were

careless with their trash or unconcerned with basic hygiene—despite what middle class city dwellers

and government publications claimed, a topic we will turn to shortly. It is because slums were

much less frequently serviced by municipal waste collection trucks. The irony is that the people

who drove these trucks and who scooped up loose garbage, often with their bare hands, were

themselves Dalit slum dwellers.

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Figure 5: child, garbage, chickens, flies

Figure 6: chicken in garbage, close-up

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Among the biggest complaint by slum dwellers, however, was the precariousness of their

drinking water supply. Twice per week a water truck was supposed to come to the slum to fill a

communal tank, from which each household was permitted two kodams (hip buckets). The water

was heavily chlorinated—it smelled like an over chlorinated swimming pool—and contained black

sediment that collected at the bottom of the kodam. This is what the people of the slum drank and

cooked with. Women lined up well in advance of the delivery truck’s arrival, and the scene was

always tense. As soon as the tank was full, squabbles and shouting were the norm. Any little

thing could start a fight, like someone accidentally spilling water and wanting to top up their kodam

again. The fear was always that there wouldn’t be enough to go around. I observed these tensions,

but never experienced them myself, because I was able to purchase my own drinking water in 35

gallon tanks from a local store.

Figure 7: women at water tank, relaxed

“The sun is very dangerous,” my assistant told me matter-of-factly one day as we walked

together across Kashtappattinam. It was nine in the morning, and I had remarked that the sun

already felt very hot. Sagayaraj was a Dalit, from a family of landless agricultural laborers. “It

can kill you very easily,” he added. Sunshine had always had positive connotations for me, and I

was startled by his words. A part of me must have assumed that the bodies of people who grew up

in such circumstances were tougher, inured to discomfort, not vulnerable to harm. But as I would

gradually learn, mosquitoes and flies bother them as much as me. And in Kashtippattinam it is not

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uncommon to see someone fall faint in the sun, despite drinking water being widely available.233

Figure 8: silt in bottom of koṭam from municipal drinking water

In Tamil villages, by contrast, the best and most conveniently located water supply is

reserved for caste people only.234 If a Dalit needs water, he must stand and beg for it. He cannot

just take what he needs to live, but must wait for a caste person to pour it into his hands, without

touching, so that he may drink. The control that caste people exert over the main sources of

drinking water is typically described in the anthropological literature in symbolic terms as a matter of

caste people’s “scruples” over ritual pollution. What is less often noticed is that the control over

water is simultaneously the power over life and death. Dalits, it is true, always have their own well.

But in the hot south Indian sun, when a man or woman needs water they often need it right away.

To beg for water is very literally to beg for one’s life. The man or woman who is made to beg is

never, under normal circumstanced, denied outright, and begging in this manner is of course also a

highly stylized ritual gesture. But ritual, as anthropologists know, can be a deadly serious business.

No one in the slum explicitly linked their dependence on the state for water to the rural

caste-based water regime. After all, in the city it is not just slum dwelling Dalits who must wait for

water! Although many city residents have running water, many do not, and those who do not are

233

It is no different, in other words, from anywhere else in Chennai where lots of people are walking around in the heat

of the day. 234

The Untouchability (Offenses) Act 1955 [check proper citation] makes such forms of discrimination illegal

everywhere in India. But enforcement is lax to non-existent, and illegal forms of exclusion remain common throughout

Tamil Nadu at the village level.

200

not all Dalit. Yet one cannot discount the possibility that water might continue to bear certain

associations for Dalit slum dwellers that non-Dalits would not share. After all, these slum dwellers

were removed from rural India by two generations at most, and many had themselves grown up in

villages. I thus strongly suspect that the collective memory of rural water regimes may have

contributed to what would have in any case been a tense situation for slum dwellers: when a water

truck fails to turn up on time, or worse yet, misses a scheduled delivery entirely. On these

occasions the mood in the slum is hard to describe; people were evidently distressed and on edge, but

no one wanted to talk about it. It was as if even acknowledging the situation might make it worse.

Once during my stay in Kashtappattinam the water truck failed to turn up for a full two weeks.

During this time the population survived on bore-well water, which was brackish and normally used

only for bathing and washing clothes. It tasted terrible. Within a few days, they said, this water

began to give them headaches. By the time water finally arrived everyone was in a terrible state,

squinting their eyes and terribly cross.235

“This doesn’t happen to other neighborhoods! Only to us!” The people of the slum were

certain that they were unfairly treated. I have no factual evidence that this was true, at least not in

the realm of water supply—and neither did they. The anthropologically significant fact here is not

the unprovable reality of discrimination, but that these people so strongly believed they were

regarded as a people apart, even where, as in municipal water, there being no clear cut evidence for it.

I will return later in the chapter to slum dwellers’ critique of the dominant, non-slum society, caste

society, the world of the “rich” and of “those who have comforts.” Before coming to that we will

consider, how the slum appears to others, and to those who live there.

Perverted ethics—a cancer in the heart of the city

In governmental publications, the miserable conditions under which slum dwellers must live are

depicted in a language at once scientific and moralizing. Scientific, in its statistical detailing of

such things as the number of latrines per person in different slums, the percentage of slums that

possess electric lighting, and how many people live on how many square feet. Quantitative data,

mostly in the form of number-filled tables, are supplanted with descriptive passages. Often these

involved definitions of what a slum is. Thus in a seminal 1961 report, Slums of Madras City, we

are told

For the purpose of this survey... a slum is taken to mean hutting areas with squalid

surroundings... [The] huts are erected in a haphazard manner …[and] on account of... over-

crowding, dilapidation and lack of ventilation are detrimental to safety, health and social

morals.236

235

During this period I quenched the thirst of anyone who asked—as indeed I did at all other times—from my private

water supply. But pro-actively providing the entire slum with bottled water was beyond my means. Significantly,

bottled water was not unaffordable to most slum families, strictly speaking. As I explain in the next chapter, many slum

women were even able to save small amounts of money each week. Yet the general state of insecurity made the people

of Anbu Nagar extraordinarily thrifty, and so long as drinking brackish water was not life threatening they proved willing

to endure this harsh regime rather than spend scarce resources on a better tasting and healthier alternative.

236 Census of India, Slums of Madras City, P.K. Nambiar, ed., Madras: Government of India, 1961, p. 5; my emphasis.

Compare with Section 3 of the Government of India Slum Areas (Improvement and Clearance) Act, 1956, which defines

slums so as to included areas that

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Slums are thus defined as both a physical and a moral hazardous to those who live there. The moral

critique of slums, however, shades ambiguously into a critique of slum dwellers. As a 1971 report

explains,

[a] slum is the cradle for disease borne out of unhygienic and insanitary [sic] conditions... we

can see men and women born to live as human beings in civilized society lead a life worse

than that of animals.... crimes are cultivated due to the perverted growth of mental ethics and

unbalanced social equilibrium.237

The filth and dereliction of slum dwellings—elsewhere described as the result of poverty—are not

just a cause of social and moral sickness, but simultaneously the result of a prior profligacy and lack

of social ethics. Coming full circle, poverty, which is elsewhere described as the cause of filth and

thus of moral decay, is likewise transformed into an effect whose ultimate cause seems to be the

moral failings of the poor themselves.

People in these slums live a life that is “nasty, brutish, and short.” The environment is

highly repellant, sordid and sickening. What little they earn, they spend on drinking and

tribal festivities, resulting in a life of eternal poverty stricken conditions.238

Slum dwellers who were not used to the toilet habits and bathing in a bathroom do not easily

acclimatise themselves to the amenities provided... Throwing garbage and waste water from

the upper floors merrily without caring for the feelings of others make the whole environ

dirty.239

Slum dwellers’ “merry” indifference to hygiene, and innate aversion to thrift and investment are not

just a danger to slum dwellers themselves. Official reports routinely depict the moral and physical

hazards of slums as affecting not only those who live there but as threatening to ordinary citizens as

well, and to the city as a whole: “residents in the neighboring areas [are also] endangered”;240 “a

by reason of dilapidation, overcrowding, faulty arrangement and design of such buildings, narrowness or faulty

arrangement of streets, lack of ventilation, light, sanitation facilities or any combination of these factors which

are detrimental to safety, health and morals.

237 Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance: First Year in Madras. Madras: Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board, 1971, pp. 13-4; my

emphases. 238

TNSCB, Socio-economic Survey of Madras Slums (Madras: TNSCB, 1975), p. 42. 239

Chairperson of the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance board, E.V.K. Sulochana Sampath, in “The Housing Problems of the

Low Income Groups: Tamilnadu Experience of Slum Improvement,” in S. Manzoor Alam and Fatima Alikhan, eds.,

Poverty in Metropolitan Cities, (New Delhi: Concept Publishing Co., 1987), p. 162.

240 Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board, Socio-Economic Survey of Madras Slums, R. Arangannal, ed., Madras: Tamil

Nadu Slum Clearance Board, 1975, p. 34.

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slum is a veritable cancer in the heart of the City.” 241

Moral culpability is trained particularly on slum women: “In slum areas women idle away

their time and as a result of it quarrel.”242 Slum women are stereotyped as foul tongued, irascible and

brash, traits that are at odds with Tamil cultural ideals for women. Such behavior is furthermore

associated, in Tamil culture, with sexual promiscuity.243 According to Tamil gender norms, the

ideal woman exhibits an exaggerated sense of shyness or “shame” [veṭkam] which itself is a sign of

her chastity [kaṟpu].244 Coming full circle, slum women’s alleged lack of chastity is implicitly cited

as a major causes male criminality in the slum. Thus among the common causes for murder in the

slum is said to be “sexual jealousies.”245 Apart from murder, “crimes affecting human body such

as… molesting women, rape, etc.,” are, unsurprisingly, said to be common occurrences in slum

areas.”246 Yet the authors offer no data to substantiate their claim that crime is higher in slums than

elsewhere, let alone that particular forms of criminality like murder and sexual molestation are.

This lack of data is striking in a report whose pages are mostly dedicated to the presentation of

quantitative data in tabular form. More striking still is the authors’ disarming admission, at the very

start of section on crime, that “no register is maintained, in any Police Station, which gives figures

for offenses committed by slum dwellers [as opposed to] non-slum dwellers.”247 Given that even so

basic data as these are unavailable, one wonders how anyone could possibly know how often slum

murders are driven by sexual jealousy.

The focus in official documents on slum dwellers’ moral shortcomings implies the need for

pedagogical programs to turn them into acceptable members of society. Thus the TNSCB, in a

publication devoted to trumpeting its achievements in “slum clearance,” describes how educational

films are screened in slum areas because slum dwellers must learn “how to live in society and adjust

with other groups of people.”248 Alleviating poverty is not enough; slum dwellers’ “adjustment” to

social existence and living with other types of people requires them to overcome their own moral and

psychological limitations:

apart from considerations of finance, there are psychological factors which have to be

overcome if slums are to be eliminated and the city made beautiful. The slum dwellers are

241

A photo caption in Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance: First Year in Madras. Madras: Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board,

1971, p. 14 242

Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance: First Year in Madras. Madras: Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board, 1971, p. 53.

243 The stereotype that slum women are querulous and foul tongued has some basis in reality, something we will explore

later in this chapter. The ethnographic literature on caste and gender in Tamil Nadu largely confirms that the further one

goes down the socio-economic and traditional caste hierarchy, the less constrained women are with respect to the norms

of “traditional” Indian patriarchy. The most thoroughgoing account of an inverse correlation between, on one hand,

caste and socio-economic status, and traditional patriarchal norms in Tamil society is given in Karen Kapadia’s Siva and

Her Sisters, Madras: Oxford University Press, 1996; see also Margaret Trawick’s description of traditionally high-caste

women who, in various ways, also buck patriarchal authority by behaving in a manner normally associated with lower-

caste women in Notes on Love in a Tamil Family, Madras: Oxford University Press, 1996; cf. M.N. Srinivas, 1956, p. 484.

244 Joop W. de Wit discusses cultural stereotypes of slum women in Poverty, Policy and Politics in Madras Slums:

Dynamics of Survival, Gender and Leadership, Delhi: Sage, 1996, pp. 38, 41.

245 Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board, Socio-Economic Survey of Madras Slums, R. Arangannal, ed., Madras: Tamil

Nadu Slum Clearance Board, 1975, p. 37. 246

Ibid. 247

Ibid. 248

This appears under the heading “Educating Slum Dwellers” in Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance: First Year in Madras.

Madras: Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board, 1971, p. 53.

203

in their attitude different from other people.249

The moral improvement of slum dwellers is today largely the consigned to NGOs. One does not

know how seriously such programs are implemented, or whether they have made any progress at all.

But quite apart from their stated aims—apart, that is, from any actual effect they might have on slum

dwellers themselves—the very existence of these programs helps to construct and naturalize the slum

dweller as morally and socially deficient, while casting the non-slum society in a benevolent parental

role.

The ideas conveyed in government reports on slums are expressed even more freely, and in

much greater detail, by members of Chennai’s English-speaking middle class. As a consequence of

my involvement with slums and slum dwellers, which has stretched over a period totaling just under

three years in Madras, I have often had occasion to hear the opinions that the city’s non-slum

dwelling citizens hold regarding their slum counterparts.250 These onversations about slums took

place on buses or on a train, in line at the bank, in shops or at tea stands, or virtually anywhere else

where I might find myself detained, and inevitably I would be asked what I was doing in Madras, to

which I would reply that I was studying slums.251

That the better off should blame the poor is not uncommon. What was surprising about

middleclass discourse on slum dwellers in Chennai was both the alacrity with which my interlocutors

take up the subject of the slum problem, and the sheer detail and consistency of the discourse that

they spontaneously produce. Their comments revolved largely around 1) the alleged vices of slum

dwellers (alcohol, laziness, unruliness, dishonesty), 2) the foolishness and vain pride that leads them

to host festivals and buy gold jewelry grossly exceeding their station, which they can only do by

taking on usurious loans and becoming trapped in debt, 3) the supposed promiscuity—especially of

women—in the slum, which is said to be the cause of the domestic abuse that virtually all my middle

class interlocutors assumed was rampant in slum areas, and 4) “poor hygiene,” understood as both a

sign and a cause of slum dwellers’ degradation.

All this is from people who have almost certainly never set foot inside a slum, or shared a

meal in a slum dwelling, let alone engaged in the sort of detailed long-term participant observation

required to understand any social order different than ones own. I am not making a moral point

here; as I have already said, the fact that the privileged would have negative attitudes about the poor

is entirely unsurprising, as is the fact that they would not enter their ghettos. In these respects, the

my English-speaking interlocutors were unremarkable. What I find anthropologically significant,

however, are the details and specificity of they had to say. For the fact that they would possess such

elaborate ideas about slum dwellers’ lives, ideas that cannot be based on any actual experience,

indicates that the source of their discourse must be sough elsewhere. As I will show, middleclass

stereotypes about urban slums closely match rural caste discourse on the Dalit cēri. The principal

difference is that members of the urban English-speaking middle class never explicitly speak of

slums in caste terms.

249

P.K. Nambiar, I.A.S. quoted in Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance: First Year in Madras. Madras: Tamil Nadu Slum

Clearance Board, 1971, p. 98. 250

This includes the period from July 2000 to September 2001, when I was in Madras on an SSRC Pre-Dissertation

Research Fellowship, as well as the period prior to and during my actual fieldwork, from January 2003 to August 2004,

for a total of 35 months. During my 2000–2001 stay in Madras, I did not focus on any one slum in particular, but

instead visited a broad array of slums, informally interviewing their residents as a way of practicing Tamil, as well as

members of the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board and NGO workers involved in helping slum dwellers. 251

These conversations were not something I sought out, and it is only in retrospect that I came to contemplate their

overall significance.

204

[paragraphs detailing middleclass discourse on slums removed]

It is not my argument that they were merely masking their caste prejudices. Although it is

widely assumed that slums are inhabited by people belonging to the lower caste, the specifically

Dalit character of Chennai’s slums has been effectively erased from official and public sphere

discourse (at least in English). Given that my interlocutor had no personal experience with slums, I

consider it likely that they are entirely unaware that the slum dwellers they are speaking of are Dalits,

or that their stereotypes about them match rural caste people’s stereotypes about the cēri.

The situation is somewhat different, in my experience, among mono-lingual Tamil speakers

who are neither Dalits nor middle class. In my conversations with such people I was often

surprised to hear the caste character of slums explicitly acknowledged, and caste prejudices openly

avowed. More than a few such people who I have met over the years have stunned me by referring

to slum dwellers as “paṟaiyan tān!” [“mere pariahs!”] and to denouncing them as aciṅkam

[“disgusting”] or “the foul/wicked ones” [keṭṭavaṅka].

There is not caste in the city

The people of Anbu Nagar were loath to discuss their own caste status, Paraiyar, though they would

frequently identify non-slum dwellers by their caste and stereotype them accordingly. They never

claimed caste-specific characteristic for themselves. Nor do their spontaneous self-descriptions

involve any reference either to their “traditional” occupations. And they were especially reluctant to

speak about untouchability. When I myself have raised the topic of their caste, they readily

acknowledged it, but dismissed it as but an historical curiosity and as being of no real concern or

relevance to their present-day existence, saying things like, “That means nothing—we all have the

same blood, don’t we?” or “Isn’t it true that God created all people the same?” (This is a paradoxical

universalism, however, given they only invoke it with respect to themselves. All other Indians—or at

any rate, all non-Dalits—are described by slum dwellers as deeply determined by inherited caste

characteristics, as we will see below.)

In explaining caste, slum dwellers typically resort to temporal and spatial displacements, as

the following examples illustrate. Prior to beginning my fieldwork I spent thirteen months in

Chennai visiting slums all around the city and talking with residents about their lives.252 They were

on the whole very forthcoming and eager to help, but whenever I expressed an interest in learning

about their own experiences of caste, I was given advice along these lines: “If you want to know

about caste you should go to a village,” or “That is a topic for history. In these modern times, caste

is no longer a consideration.” Such historical and spatial displacements, moreover, function more

or less interchangeably, with the effect that “the village” is not only in a different place, but also a

different time. Thus it is not unusual to hear statements such as: “Caste is a thing of the past —here

in the city we have no caste.” Caste, in short, is elsewhere. It is in the historical past, and it is in

their own village past. Their relatives who live in the village may continue to suffer it, but urban

slum dwellers insist that they do not. “Here I can sit next to anyone on a bench in the hotel

[canteen],” one slum dweller explained to me, “I can live anywhere. There is no more caste

today.”253

252

I gratefully acknowledge the Social Science Research Council for supporting this pre-fieldwork exploration (2000-

2001) through their International Pre-dissertation Fellowship Program. 253

The “denial of coevalness”—a tendency to represent people living in socially or politically peripheral locations, or

205

Mere poverty is infinitely superior to untouchability [tīṇṭāmai]; the fact that they themselves

were poor rather than untouchable. It was a point of pride for many slum dwellers that they have

never been personally subjected to untouchability. As one young man explained to me, “We live in

the city so we have no caste—we are educated people, modern.” Given that most adult slum

dwellers have not studies past 3rd

grade, “educated” here cannot be taken literally.

Those residents of Anbu Nagar who grew up in the village, or who have spent time there,

maintain that life was actually much more comfortable there, materially speaking. The air was

fresh and clean, there were lots of plants, conditions were not so crowded. They earned less, but

their expenses were less too. The downside was caste: daily humiliations, the requirement to show

deference, the threat of violence. They recall not being allowed to walk on certain streets, being

required to get off their bicycles and walk when passing certain people, being openly derided, being

hit by overseers, having funeral processions forcibly diverted through flooded paddy fields by caste

people who would not allow them to use the road. Women are also reported to have been routinely

subject to sexual harassment, groping, and even rape by caste men who deem this their traditional

prerogative, though no one in Anbu Nagar was willing to admit that this had ever happened to them

personally. The mass migration of Paraiyars from rural Tamil Nadu to Chennai/Madras has always

been seen—along with rural–urban migration more generally—as driven by economic factors: either

the “pull” factor of urban opportunities, or the so-called “push factor” of wanting to escape rural

deprivation. One does not doubt that both sorts of economic incentives are there for Dalits, too.

But it seems fair to surmise that the mass migration of Paraiyars to the city’s slums is not just a flight

from rural poverty and landlessness. It is also a flight from untouchability and an attempt to

become simply “the poor.”

Slum dwellers make up a full 30% of the city’s population and supply the bulk of all manual

labor. They also have a virtual monopoly on the most physically difficult and dangerous jobs.

Slums are thus cheap-labor colonies, housing a desperate subpopulation whose poorly-compensated

exertions underwrite the relative privilege of virtually everyone else remains entirely unnoted in

official studies and reports. Chennai’s slums are inhabited almost entirely by Dalits.254 Prior to

conducting fieldwork in Anbu Nagar in 2003–4, I spent 2000–2001 visiting slums all over Chennai;

the caste composition of all these slums was the same as Anbu Nagar’s, and every slum resident

seems to know this fact about slums as well.

under pre-capitalist modes of production, as if they were also living in a previous time—is a familiar modernist strategy.

For a discussion of its use in anthropological discourse, see Johannes Fabian, Time and the Other, New York: Columbia

University Press, 1983. 254

Statistics on the caste composition of Chennai slums are extremely unreliable in my experience. One of the reasons

I chose Anbu Nagar is that it was the subject of a special study by the Census of India. The published report based on

this study suggests that Dalits make up anywhere from 70 to 83 percent* of the total population of the neighborhood,

when in fact only three out of a total of 403 households were non-Dalit. It also grossly underestimates the Christian

population as 7% (when the true figure is in fact anywhere from 25–50%), and seriously overestimates the Muslim

population as 6% (when it is in fact less than 1%). Anbu Nagar is not an exception. Other slums I know personally to

be virtually 100% Dalit are likewise described in government, social scientific, and NGO reports as being of mixed caste.

Errors of this nature are likely due to the fact that a great many Dalit slum dwellers are unwilling to reveal their caste

status to a complete stranger. I have been told many times by slum dwellers that they have not answered accurately

when asked by census workers whether they are SC or not.

* Neither the State of Tamil Nadu nor the Government of India collects statistics on Dalits per se, but only on

Hindu Dalits (known as Scheduled Castes, or SCs). The report to which I refer lists Anbu Nagar as 70 percent

SC, implying that Dalits comprise a minimum of 70 percentage of Anbu Nagar’s total population, and a

maximum of 83 percent (if all Muslims and Christians are also Dalit).

206

The residents of Anbu Nagar are well aware of these facts. They readily acknowledge that

Anbu Nagar and surrounding slums, along with every other slum in the city they are personally

familiar with, are homogeneously Dalit neighborhoods. They also readily acknowledge that

proportionally very few Dalits live in non-slum areas.255 They know that men from slums are

predominantly casual day laborers (“coolies”), and that virtually all casual day laborers are slum

dwellers. And yet they are quick to point out that they Dalits in such neighborhoods, not because

they are prohibited from living elsewhere, but simply because they are poor. They perform difficult

physical labor, not because they are forced to—as their ancestors were, even two or three generations

ago—but because they are poor.

Return of the repressed

While sitting alone with Indira one morning, I heard her use a word I had never before heard uttered

in Anbu Nagar. That word was cēri. “Around here, everyone is poor,” she said, and then she

muttered, “Cēri people are always poor.” I didn’t say anything at first, but a few minutes later I

tried using the word myself and Indira froze. “You must never use that word around here, Robert,”

she warned me.256 I told her that she herself had just used it, to which she responded by saying,

“We don’t use that word anymore.” It was a word they used a long time ago in the slum, she

explained, but warned me that if anyone heard me using it they would get angry — “Especially the

men. . . they will get very angry.” But it’s a perfectly good word, I insisted, and there is no shame

in it. I pointed out that Sagayaraj, my assistant who had grown up in a village cēri, used the word

freely, and that it was common throughout rural Tamil Nadu. Significantly, Indira did not contest

the implication that the urban slum was in fact a cēri. Instead she held out her forearm in front of

me, pointing to a vein with the other hand. “We all have the same blood, don’t we Robert?” It

was at once an appeal and a challenge.

Later I mentioned this incident to a friend, Karuppan, a social worker who was active in Dalit

politics. He himself had grown up in Anbu Nagar, and was amongst a handful of young men from

the slum to have gone to college, found a job, and moved out. He shook his head at what he

portrayed as Indira’s naïve faith in words. “In reality,” he explained,

slum means cēri and cēri means slum. ‘Cēri’ is simply the Tamil word for ‘slum’ —there’s

no difference. A cēri is wherever Dalit people live; wherever Dalit people live is a slum, a

cēri! Every village has its own slum, but they use the Tamil word. In the city people like

to say ‘slum’ because they think it sounds better. They want to say: ‘We are modern people,

we have no caste’. . . but really, they know how people see them.

255

No statistics are collected on the percentage of Dalits in non-slum areas. My middle class Dalit friends estimate

that no more than 2 or 3% of the residents in neighborhoods they have lived in are Dalit, and that they generally have to

keep their caste secret. Virtually all have described being made to feel uncomfortable when their identity as Dalits is

revealed, and several have had to move elsewhere as a consequence. Even the 2–3% figure probably overestimates the

total portion of Dalits in non-Dalit areas, because some areas are exclusively high caste settlements where no Dalits at all

live. (In Tamil Nadu it is common for rentals to be advertised as “Brahmin only” or “vegetarian only,” which is

understood to mean: no Christians, Muslims or Hindus outside the top castes. Housing discrimination is perfectly legal

in India, so long as landlords do not explicitly say “no untouchables.”) Exclusively high caste neighborhoods were

outside the personal experience of any of my middle class Dalit friends. On the other hand, housing for civil servants

certainly has a higher portion of Dalits, due to compensatory discrimination policies (“affirmative action” in US

parlance) and due to the fact that overt caste discrimination is impossible in government-owned housing. 256

In the slum I was known as “Robert” (and among children as “Robert uncle”).

207

Know what? According to Karuppan, the people of Anbu Nagar—most of his family, in other

words—were perfectly well aware that they were still “nothing but Paraiyars,” in the eyes of caste

people, and that all claims to have escaped from caste were but vain delusion.

Another Dalit friend, however, who was of rural origin but now part of the urban middle-

class, had a slightly different response when I told him about Indira’s reaction to “ceri.” He saw it

not as evidence of denial on her part, but as a case of genuine ignorance. “Of course they don’t

know about caste,” he replied, laughing darkly.

They live in a place where everyone around them is also Dalit. They can eat their beef and

no one cares. There are no houses for rent in the slums that say: ‘Brahmins only’ or

‘vegetarians only.’ And the jobs they try to get —coolie work— are only for Dalits anyway,

so no one will tell ever tell them ‘no’ [you can’t have this job]. But when they try to rise up,

and leave the slum, that is when they find out.

In other words, their entire lives are determined by caste in a way they can never see until they try to

step out of that life and into another.

I got a similar message from Anu, a young woman whose family had come from the slum,

but now lived outside it. She was, at the time, studying for a bachelor’s degree in physical therapy

in a government college, but came to the slum regularly to visit her grandmother and also to attend

the spoken English class I conducted every evening. One day, a boy in the class, Karthik, who also

came from outside the slum had made some comments which caused me to doubt whether he was in

fact a Dalit. I was reluctant to ask Karthik his caste directly. But I was intrigued. If he was not a

Dalit, his willingness to venture into the slum would have been extremely unusual. Indeed,

according to residents, outsiders never entered into the slum if they could possibly avoid doing so,

and the discomfort and out-of-sorts behavior of the odd visitor was a reliable source of wry

amusement. So as soon as I got the chance, I asked Anu whether she thought he might be a caste

person. “Oh no, sir,” she replied, “[he is] SC.” But how can you be so sure, I asked, how can you

know? “I just know,” she said, looking somewhat sad.

Me: Do you know his family?

Anu: No.

Me: Do you know were he lives?

A: No.

Me: Are you sure?

A: Yes, sir. I am sure.

Me: But how do you know?

A: It’s totally clear. I can just look at him and know instantly.

Me: But I see nothing about him that says he’s a Dalit.

208

A: You can’t see, but that is because you are different. But I... I am also Dalit.

She said this hesitantly, perhaps thinking that I didn’t yet know it. Or perhaps it was simply

something that she did not like to hear said aloud.

Anu: We can always recognize each other.

Me: Always?

A: Yes [speaking even more quietly], our boys have a different look.

Me: But I see nothing different about him. And isn’t it true that all Indians have

the same blood? Isn’t it true that there is only one race, the human race? I

thought that jātis only exist in the imagination?

A: That is true. Of course. But it’s not that, it’s. . . it’s the way he stands, I

mean, it’s his personality. He’s very shy and not confident, and you can see

that in how he stands and how he walks and in his face.

Me: Okay, but surely not all Dalits are like that.

A: Please, sir.

Amavasai was a retired harbor worker who was around 70 years of age.257 He and his wife

had been living in Anbu Nagar since having been settled there after the slum where they had

previously lived had been “cleared” by the Tamil Nadu Housing Board in 1964. They were among

the most prosperous of slum dwellers: they owned the plot on which Sagayaraj and I lived, and

collected a monthly rent of Rs. 400 from us and four other tenant households.258 Amavasai was

lucky to have spent his working years in a unionized sector—unlike the majority of slum dwellers

who were casual laborers—and he received a handsome monthly pension of Rs. 4000. On the day

he received his pension he would buy a bottle of liquor and a packet of beedis, and then turn the

balance over to his wife. His custom was to drink the bottle over a two-day period, which he

confided to me were the only time he was ever really happy.

Amavasai’s wife had many friends with whom she would sit in front of her house in the

mornings and evenings, but he always seemed peripheral to that group and didn’t have any friends of

his own as far as I was aware. Perhaps for that reason he would often drop in on me, and I always

made an effort to talk to him even though he himself seldom had anything much to say. His

primary interest, which I shared, was in doing small household projects like fixing a light switch,

stringing a clothesline, repairing a broken shelf, and so on, and I occasionally even invented new

projects for us to do together.

257

Members of the older generation in the slum seldom knew when they were born, so their ages are estimates. 258

Altogether there were 21 of us living in six separate households on a 95 square meter plot. Anbu, a casual laborer,

and the family of Meena, a 16-year-old girl, both of whom we will meet in the next chapter, were amongst those living

on Amavasai’s land. My own dwelling , which I shared with my assistant Sagayaraj, was the second most spacious,

measuring just under 101 square feet. The largest plot housed Amavasai and his wife Ellaiyammal.

209

Amavasai, who had just received his monthly pension, wandered into my room with a bottle

in his hand. It was early afternoon, the hottest time of the day, during which those who did not have

to work remained indoors. I generally used this time to take a break from my fieldwork, and on this

day was in my room reading something about the abolition of hook-swinging in late nineteenth-

century Madras.259 Amavasai, who was illiterate, asked me what I was reading, and by way of

explanation I drew a sketch of a hook-swinging. “Oh yes, that,” he said, claiming to have seen the

practice in person a number of times when he was a young boy.260 The seems to have prompted a

string of memories. His eyes misting over, he leaned very close, looking at me intensely. “The

whole world has changed and all that is finished,” and paused, as if for me to absorb what he was

telling me. When at last he continued speaking it was in a hushed tone. “In those days, there was

‘untouchability’ [tīṇṭāmai].” He touched my knee emphatically as he said this. “The caste people

[jāti makkaḷ] held us down, and whatever they said to do, we had to do it. If not, they would beat

us.” He spoke about the violence, poverty and hunger they faced, as well as the forced labor

[aṭimai vēlai, lit. “slave labor”] they were made to perform. His speech was not always clear, due

to drink and emotion, but again and again, between each point he would repeat the word “tīnṭāmai,”

lifting his hand off my leg and pressing it down again firmly, as if to illustrate. At length he paused

and, sitting back, looked at me for what seemed like a long time, his rheumy eyes searching my face

for some response or perhaps a sign of recognition. I managed only to mumble the usual platitudes

about how caste is “a social evil” and “we are all the same blood.” I don’t know if he heard me at

this point, or even cared, as I was mid-sentence when he resumed, bringing his whole speech to

conclusion: “But today I have a ‘pension’!” His eyes were wide, and his mouth opened in a

stylized gesture of astonishment. “Pension!” he repeated, chuckling to himself as he got up, bottle

in hand, and left the room.

A few hours later Amavasai returned looking distraught. He took my hands in his and,

kneeling down in front of my chair, asked me if I had told anyone about our conversation.

Previously we had both been seated at equal levels, and his kneeling unnerved me. I said that I

hadn’t, but he would not let go of my hands or get up off the floor. Tears were now openly

streaming down his face, and he begged me never to tell anyone in Anbu Nagar what he had told me.

I had to repeat the promise several times before he, satisfied, released my hands and left. “Are you

sure you won’t tell?... are you sure?... please don’t tell...you must not say anything, okay? Do you

promise?”

Caste or class?

259

Hook-swinging was a religious practice where low caste (but usually not Dalit) devotees would be “sponsored” by a

wealthy patron to put hooks through the muscle in their backs and then be swung throught in the air to honor a deity.

This was regarded as inhumane and banned by the British, although the swingers insisted they felt no pain. Similar

practices of piety, involving piercing the body in various ways, remain a popular form of religious devotion in Tamil

Nadu today, though hook-swinging is primarily a thing of the past. See Nicholas Dirks, Castes of Mind: Colonialism

and the Making of Modern India, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001. 260

Amavasai had emigrated to the city, alone, when he was nine years old when both his parents died, and was raised by

an aunt and uncle in a slum near the harbor where he began immediately to work. Although hook-swinging would have

been officially abolished before Amavasai was born, it is likely that the practice persisted.

210

Two generations of husbandly neglect had taken a toll on the family and Kalaivani’s four children

were perpetually dirty, each having only one set of tattered clothes save the youngest, a boy of

around two, who had only a pair of underpants. Her eldest child, a boy named Sudagar, attended

the English classes I offered in the evenings, but although he was a clever child he had trouble

concentrating.261 He was eager to learn, nevertheless, and thus I was surprised when I found out he

wasn’t attending the free government school set up for slum children. He wore his school uniform

throughout the week, and on weekends too, it being among the only clothes he owned. His mother

saw Sudagar as a carefree child refused to go to school simply because he “prefers to run around and

play all the time.” I found out from other children, however, that the real reason is that his teachers

would hit him and send him away because his uniform was old and torn. When I confronted

Sudagar with this information he confessed that it was true, but said that his mother didn’t know and

asked me not to tell her.

Though my usual policy was to buy only medicine and the occasional meal for people in

Anbu Nagar, I immediately went to his mother and offered to have a new uniform stitched for him.262

But rather than telling her the real reason I said Sudagar had won a prize for perfect attendance in my

evening English class.263 The shop front cloth seller who served the slum was already closed for

lunch when we arrived, so I took her to another cloth seller, a walk-in establishment in a different

neighborhood not far away. It was not a fancy place; the shop was quite shabby and the

neighborhood it was located in was a poor working class one.264 Yet Kalaivani for was for some

reason reluctant to go inside. She said she’d prefer to just wait outside. But I insisted that she

accompany me, because I wouldn’t be able to identify the correct cloth for the uniform. When we

got inside I was horrified. The merchants openly sneered at Kalaivani, despite the fact that we were

clearly together and I was speaking to her using respectful forms. I was so flustered by their

behavior I couldn’t find the words to tell them off. Kalaivani kept her eyes to the floor and spoke in

barely audible tones throughout the encounter. I later learned that this sort of thing was typical, and

that all but the best dressed slum dwellers would be treated this way in most commercial

establishments, and for that reason generally avoid entering them. Having been sensitized to the

hidden forms discrimination can take in Chennai I soon began to notice it everywhere. Even

roadside tea stands, I have often seen barefoot slum-dwelling laborers being deliberately ignored, or

made to wait until all other customers are served.

Is this caste or class discrimination? Most people, including slum dwellers themselves,

261

I was later able to ascertain that this was due to hunger. 262

This was not the only time I broke my rule against giving things. But I hid all signs of generosity behind various

forms of subterfuge. I will enlarge on this in the next chapter, because there is a significant ethnographic point in the

way these subterfuges played out. 263

Technically this was true, though the prize itself had been concocted only in order to provide an excuse for the new

school uniform. 264

There are many neighborhoods in Chennai that, if they were located in another city such as Mumbai, would be

classified as slums. And like most outsiders I, before I had experience with what actual Chennai slums were like, might

intuitively have characterize this neighborhood as a slum also. The real difference, in local usage, between “slum” and

“non-slum” is whether or not Dalits live there. This is not, as we have seen, how the Government of Tamil Nadu

classifies slums. But in practice official classification matches almost exactly local usage. The one exception is that

fisherman hutments on the seashore, which are known as kuppams. The residents of these areas are as poor as those of

any Dalit slum, and their physical amenities are equally bad. Kuppams are classified by the government as slums, but

are not counted as such in local usage. I only learned this distinction when I once casually referred to a fisherman

hutment as a “slum.” The man I was speaking to, a resident, appeared surprised and explained “but this isn’t a slum, it’s

a kuppam; we’re fishermen, not paraiyars.”

211

would emphatically answer that it is about class. In the city, after all, no one knows anyone else’s

caste. At least not with any high degree of certainty. But given that the urban class structure—or

at least the division between slum dwelling casual laborers and everyone else—is determined by

caste, one wonders whether the caste–class distinction is a theoretically sound one. If caste is

understood as being in its very essence a matter of ritual hierarchy, in which class and other “secular

factors” are extrinsic realities that may correlate with caste status but are by definition not part of it,

then the discrimination slum dwellers face in the urban milieu is clearly not a matter of caste but of

class.265

Slum dwellers do not readily refer to themselves as Paraiyars, Adi Dravidas, SCs, or

Dalits—though they acknowledge the applicability of these terms—but simply as “the poor” [ēḻai].266

Conversely, when speaking of non-slum dwellers, they generally avoid referring to them by their

collective status as “caste people” [jāti makkaḷ], but describe them instead using class terms, as “the

privileged” [vacati uṭaiyavaṅka; lit. “those who have comforts”] or “the rich” [paṇakkāraṅka]).

And it is not by chance that these are the categories out of which slum dwellers would fashion a

unique language for talking about caste.

Due to the empirical regularity that, in Chennai, the slum dwelling poor are in fact all Dalits,

and non-slum dwellers (who by slum standards are all rich) almost never are, slum dwellers’ class

terms are referentially co-extensional with Dalit and non-Dalit.267 But why use a class idiom rather

than speak directly about caste, if that is what is really meant? I argue that the distinct conceptual

possibilities of the class idiom account for at least part of its appeal to slum dwellers. For whereas

“jāti” refers to something immutable and intrinsic to the person, the vocabulary of class refers to a

condition that is mutable and extrinsic. “Class,” in contradistinction to jāti, describes a collective

identity that one may enter and exit without any necessary alteration of one’s social, moral or

physical being. The class idiom is thus not merely a euphemism for jāti as popularly conceived; it

is a theoretical challenge to it. By describing themselves in class terms, slum dwellers claim an

identity untainted by “pollution,” one which makes no reference to the various inborn and wholly

negative physical and moral characteristics ascribed to them, as Paraiyars, by caste discourse,

implying instead that they are simply people whose lack of access to resources puts them at the

mercy of others. Conversely, by consistently referring to caste people, not according to their

claimed status as “having caste,” but simply as “the rich,” slum dwellers’ statements advance the

view that caste people’s superior status is in fact nothing more than wealth and entrenched privilege.

For after all, “caste is a mere lie [veṟum poy],” slum dwellers maintain: “All people are the same... all

have the same blood.” At the same time, however, the slum idiom of class ascribes certain traits to

“the rich” using the language of kuṇam (traits or characteristics usually believed to inhere from birth;

Skt: guṇa?) that lends what we might call a caste character to their concept of class. What has been

265

See Nathaniel Roberts, “Caste, Anthropology of,” in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, edited by

William S. Darity, 461–463, 2nd

ed., New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2008. 266

On the meanings and distinctions among “SC,” “Adi Dravida,” “Dalit,” and so on, see the Prefatory Notes, pp. x-xii. 267

Terms that are “co-extensional” (or which have the same “extensional” meaning) are simply those which refer to the

same set of objects in the world, without necessarily having the same sense (or “intensional” meaning; the meaning of a

sign within a system of signs, such as a language, a discourse, a theory, etc.) Thus “featherless bipeds” and “human

beings” are said to be co-extensional, because empirically there are no featherless bipeds other than human beings. The

sense or intensional meaning of these two terms—the concept they convey—however, is entirely different. For a more

precise account of what philosophers of language have meant by intension and extension, the interested reader can

consult “Intensional logic” in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, supplement, Donald M. Borchert, ed., New York:

Macmillan, 1996, pp. 262-3, or “Intensional entities” in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy vol. 4, Edward Craig, ed.,

New York: Routledge, 1998, pp. 803-7.

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produced in the speech of the slum is thus a distinct conceptual idiom having properties of both jāti

and class, yet reducible to neither, an idiom that, as we shall see, enables and forecloses particular

ethical and political possibilities.

In anthropological studies of Dalits, much attention has been devoted to collecting and

analyzing so-called untouchable origin myths —legends and just-so stories explaining how they

became untouchable in the first place. What has been found, over and over again, is that some

original ancestor was reduced to the status of untouchable for reasons that are neither legitimate nor

rational, usually involving some sort of cosmological accident or treachery. The unstated

assumption is that myths are an important source for understanding how “untouchables”

conceptualize their condition and relation to the dominant caste society, which can be read off their

narrative and symbolic elements in a fairly straightforward fashion. What has received little if any

consideration, however, is who actually knows and tells these types of stories, under what

circumstances they are told and to whom, or what either their tellers or those who hear them actually

make of them. That such stories are readily trotted out at the behest of anthropologists who

specifically request them is clear enough, but beyond that it is anybody’s guess.

My approach, by contrast, has never been to seek out myths or the traditional specialists who

might be likely to know and tell them, but simply to observe how caste was addressed in day-to-day

life. Insofar as I actively pursued the question of caste by asking slum dwellers what they made of

it, I never demanded of my interlocutors that they should couch their answers in mythological form

—nor did they ever spontaneously see fit to do so. And when I have specifically asked slum

dwellers to explain how castes are formed, they have referred, not to primordial events, but to

ongoing processes. For jātis, according to slum understandings, have no fundamental reality in

their own right but are merely the effect of selfish actions aimed at monopolizing resources.

Specifically, jāti is an effect of the traits such as stinginess and selfish pride, which slum

dwellers ascribe to “the rich.” In positing jāti as an effect, rather than an independent cause, slum

dwellers thus depart from the popular understanding of jāti as natural human type. Suresh a manual

laborer and the father of two young girls put it this way:

What is jāti? It is simply this: Some people will decide they don’t want to share. For

example, suppose the people on that end of the street decided they didn’t want to let those of

us on this end use the water pump anymore. “If you come near it, we will beat you.” And

then suppose they also said: “No more school for you —school is only for us.” In that case

we would have no water and would be suffering horribly. Our children would not be able to

develop [vaḷara muṭiyātu]. Those people would get bigger and bigger and we would remain

weak. Soon we would have to serve them and work for them. That is jāti.

The people in this example only become a group (or jāti) in the act of proclaiming that they “don’t

want to share.” Prior to banding together for the purposes of excluding others, the excluders were

not a corporate group but merely “the people on that end of the street” (i.e. they were not related to

one another except by the accident of living on the same end of the street). In contrast to popular

understandings, as well as traditional anthropological theories —in which political-economic

realities are treated as external “factors,” rather than as being definitive of caste— slum dwellers

213

conceptualize resource monopolization and domination as in fact the very essence of caste.268, 269

Employing a biological metaphor, slum dwellers describes the normal course of things as

being one in which human beings, like all living creatures, will naturally develop and flourish

[vaḷarum/vaḷaruvāṅka] if given the care they require. According to this picture “the rich” have

prevented them from rising, not just by monopolizing natural resources, but also by rejecting the

fellow humanity of Dalits. This rejection is described in terms of a refusal to care for and help them.

As Aracu, a young father of two exceptionally bright girls, aged six and four, explained

The way things are today in this world—in India—no amount of studying and education will

be enough for someone from the slum to rise up. A child can study and study, but even if

they have talent, it is not enough. Because what you need is for someone to recognize that

talent. Someone must notice and say: “Little brother, I see you are studying well. Come

with me!” It is their duty [kaṭamai] to reach out and help like that, but they will never do it.

Never.

In expressing his own and his children’s poverty in terms of a need for help, Aracu’s statement is

typical of slum dwellers. It is also typical in that its critical force is limited to identifying a sin of

omission—rich people’s failure, on an individual and collective level, to recognize slum dwellers as

people with legitimate needs, to treat them as fellow human beings.

Interestingly, what are expressly not included amongst the actions that go into the creation of

jātis are any sort of ritual or religious practices—pace both brahminical ideology and much

anthropological theory. Indeed, not only do dietary practices and other ritual observations have no

268 For example, when I asked a slum women what caste a child of an inter-caste marriage would be, her response came

without hesitation: “It depends on how much money the family has.” This is in striking contrast to the commonsense

views I and other anthropologists have typically encountered amongst caste people in Tamil Nadu, in which jāti is

assumed to describe innate physical and behavioral differences. Marguerite Ross Barnett and Steve Barnett, for

instance, interviewed 72 (non-Brahmin) caste people asking them the question, “If a Paraiyan baby was brought to your

house immediately after birth so that no one knew his parents were Paraiyan, and if he was raised exactly as a child of

your own family, would anyone be able to tell at age 21 that he was a Paraiyan?” Sixty-five out of the seventy-two

caste interviewees answered “Yes,” suggesting, for instance, that “He wouldn’t know how to give proper respect,” “He

would try to eat beef secretly,” “His hair would be too curly...” or “his nose too flat.” Surveys of this type have not,

unfortunately, been carried out on a wider scale, though no one with any familiarity with Tamil culture would find these

results surprising. See Barnett and Barnett, “Contemporary Peasant and Postpeasant Alternatives in South India: The

Ideas of a Militant Untouchable,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 220 (6) 1974, p. 397.

269 Similar understandings have been observed by other anthropologists who have conducted ethnographic research

amongst Dalits. See, for example, Gerald D. Berreman, Caste and Other Inequities: Essays on Inequality, Meerut: Ved

Prakash Vatuk Folklore Institute, 1979, esp. chs. 1, 11, and 13; Joan P. Mencher. “The Caste System Upside Down, or the

Not So Mysterious East,” Current Anthropology 15 (4) 1974, pp. 469-93, and “On Being an Untouchable in India: A

Materialist Perspective,” in Beyond the Myths of Culture: Essays in Cultural Materialism, Eric B. Ross, ed., New York:

Academic Press, 1980, pp. 261-94; Owen M. Lynch, “Method and Theory in the Sociology of Louis Dumont,” in The

New Wind: Changing Identities in South Asia, Kenneth David, ed., The Hague: Mouton, 1977, pp. 247-8; Robert Deliège,

The World of the “Untouchables”: Paraiyars of Tamil Nadu, trans. David Philips, Chennai: Oxford University Press,

1997; James M. Freeman, “The Consciousness of Freedom among India’s Untouchables,” in Social and Economic

Development in India, Dilip K. Basu and Richard Sisson, eds., New Delhi: Sage, 1986, p. 156. The one notable

exception is Michael Moffatt —although, as he himself admits (p. xxiv), neither his data nor its analysis are based on

close ethnographic contact with Dalits; An Untouchable Community in South India: Structure and Consensus Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 1979.

214

causal relation to caste, many slum dwellers went so far as to deny even an ex post facto connection

between dietary and other ritual observances and caste.270 “Everyone eats beef,” I have been

assured by slum dwellers on numerous occasions. “Nadar, Iyer, Thevar, Gounder—all eat it!” one

neighbor exclaimed in response to my queries, genuinely incredulous that I didn’t already know this.

“But they are too proud, and will never admit it.” It is not what people actually do that determines

their caste, in other words, but simply their ability to both claim and enforce precedence over

others.271 It would be pointless, therefore, for slum dwellers to give up beef, because eating beef

was never in reality the cause their low status.

The fact that slum dwellers rejected ritual observances as either the essence or cause of caste

hierarchy—rather than as simply an after the fact expression of it—meant that they were largely

dismissive of the idea that there could be a genuine connection between the Hindu religion and caste.

“God doesn’t see jāti,” I was often told, when assaying their reactions to this hypothesis, or, “Jāti is a

human creation —it was not made by god.” The fact that Brahmins claimed a special right to serve

as priests in “rich people’s temples,” or that caste people had collectively barred slum dwellers’ own

ancestors from entering temples did not indicate anything about Hinduism per se, let alone that the

Hindu gods sanctioned caste. Temples, which housed the most powerful providers of all, gods,

were yet another valuable resource (like education, good jobs, land, and water) that some people

had sought to monopolize at others’ expense.272

The souls of rich folk

[Removed section that examines slum dwellers’ theories on caste people’s kuṇam, and how they

reconcile their belief that caste people’s personal traits are determined by their caste with their claim

that caste is merely imaginary and that all people in fact have “the same blood.”]

270 This is not limited to the observation that the ritual practices of caste people are riddled with obvious contradictions.

Thus, for example, slum dwellers say things like this: “No one touches their lips to the vessel when drinking water. . . but

who will pour tea into their mouth from a distance? They can’t —if they did, they’d get stains on their clothing!” The

literature on Dalits is full of examples in which they point out the theoretical inconsistencies in the practices that are

allegedly the source of caste peoples’ status, and it seems unnecessary to multiply examples; Lynn Vincentnathan.

“Untouchable Concepts of Person and Society,” Contributions to Indian Sociology 27 (1) 1993, pp. 53-82, and references

in fn. 269, above.

271 This simply confirms what Berreman and others have observed; see fn. 269, above. Indeed, even M.N. Srinivas

provides data in support of this point, though unlike Berreman, Srinivas persists in seeing ritual practices as the very

essence of caste and political economic “factors” as definitionally external to it; see “A Note on Sanskritization and

Westernization,” The Far Eastern Quarterly 15 (4) 1956, pp. 482-3, 492; the only difference is that, unlike Berreman,

Srinivas characteristically assumed that he was able to discern realities that would have been for some reason

inaccessible to his ethnographic subjects.

272 The fact that slum dwellers did not blame Hinduism for caste is significant to the larger argument of this book. It

explains why the common explanation for Dalit conversion to Christianity—namely, their rejection of Hinduism is

prompted by a rejection of caste—does not work in the slum context. It also explains another seeming oddity of inter-

religious relations in the slum: the fact that Christians did not regard Hinduism as immoral, but merely ineffectual. If

caste were understood as being authorized by Hinduism, it would be very impossible for slum dwellers not to see it as

immoral (given that caste is a paradigmatically immoral institution according to them).

215

Only the poor care about other people

Unlike the rich, who are variously described as being distant, speaking sourly, getting angry easily,

proud, and generally lacking in fellow-feeling, slum dwellers portray themselves as warm and

affectionate towards all people, as sharing whatever resources they have, and as always taking care

of those in need. “Only the poor,” they often say, “care about other people.”

But the meaning of “only the poor care...” is that everyone cares about others, with the

exception of “the rich.” When referring to themselves as “the poor,” slum dwellers are including

themselves in a larger humanity, and specifying, not a jāti identity, but its absence—hence their oft-

repeated claims that they are “merely human,” and their failure to attribute any traits, even positive

ones, to themselves on the basis of jāti. The care they show towards each other is premised not on a

shared sense of jāti, they claim, but only on their unadorned humanity.273 Conversely, in denying

care to others, caste people (“the rich”) in effect negate their own humanity, rejecting the community

of the human in favor of that of jāti. The idea that they are simply human and nothing more allows

slum dwellers to envision themselves as connected to all people throughout the world in a way that

caste people cannot be.

The notion of care, on which slum dwellers place so much emphasis, does not correspond to

any single word in their lexicon.274 What I have conceptualized in terms of the English word “care”

comprises a network of interrelated concepts and can be glossed with a number of related words in

Tamil. One word used often is pārttal, which literally means “seeing” or “looking at,” but which is

commonly used in the sense of “checking up on” someone out of concern, acknowledging their

presence, or treating them as consequential.275 Thus, for example, someone might say “There are a

lot of people over there whom I see,” to mean that they have a lot of friends they must periodically

visit and check up on in a particular neighborhood. An old woman once shouted at me, “How come

you never look at this street?!” thereby accusing me of showing insufficient concern for those living

on her street and partiality to those on the next street over. This sense of the word pārttal is not

unique to slum dwellers and is part of its extended usage in everyday Tamil; what is significant is the

emphasis placed on the behavior it refers to, and the way it is used in describing caste people. For

“the rich,” caste people, are often described as “not looking at” others, especially the poor. In the

slum, “seeing” refers to a relationship of compassion that is quintessentially human, and dictated not

by divine power but by the weakness of those who cannot survive without the care of others.

The key moral concept in the world of the slum, which I translate as “care,” does not,

however, correspond to any single word in Tamil. In using this term I am in fact translating a whole

cluster of closely related terms that include kavaṉittal [paying attention to], aṉpu [“love”], irakkam

[“sympathy”], pācam [“affection”], as well as utavi koṭuttal [“giving aid to”] and “helf” [the English

273

Reading an earlier draft of this chapter, Jonathan Parry asked whether one of the factors enabling slum dwellers’ to

insist on their own castelessness and propound a universalistic notion of human sameness was the absence of any

Aruntatiyars (Cakkaliyars), a Dalit caste that Paraiyars have sometimes been known to treat as inferior (as, for example,

in Michael Moffatt’s An Untouchable Community in South India). This is an interesting question. But what the people

of Anbu Nagar would do in some alternative universe, or how they might change if their circumstances were radically

altered, is not my concern here. My purpose in this chapter is simply to trace the logic of their discourse as it is, to

identify any contradictions internal to it, and (in the next chapter) to chart the relationship between what they say and

what they do. 274

On the distinction between words and concepts, see Jonathan Parry, “A Hindu Lexicographer? A Note on

Auspiciousness and Purity,” Contributions to Indian Sociology 25, no. 2 (1991): 267–285. 275

I have given the verb its gerundive form because that corresponds to how we talk about verbs in English; the root

form in Tamil is pār.

216

word “help”]. While it may seem strange to link active and passive terms (i.e. “giving aid” versus

“love”) together under a single heading, active and passive forms of care are not regarded as separate

in actual practice. Thus when I have asked slum dwellers to tell me, for example, what it means to

“have affection” for someone, they have said things like “pācam [“affection”] means helf [“help”];

helf means pācam.” Perhaps the most commonly used term in this family of concepts that I

translate as “care” is pārttal, which literally means “seeing” or “looking at,” but which is commonly

used in the sense of “checking up on” whom one is concerned about, acknowledging their presence,

or treating them as consequential. To “see” someone is in the affective and moral world of the slum

both to “care about” and “to care for” them. And one of the defining traits of caste people is that

they “don’t see us [i.e. Dalits].” “Sometimes they don’t even look at you. Other times they may

scrutinize you, inspecting you up and down—but still they don’t see.”

The opposite of care can be summarized with a single word: puṟakkaṇippu.

Puṟakkaṇippu’s everyday meaning is “ignoring,” but it is also the term used for social boycott—the

organized practice of treating some individual or group as being beyond the pale of human society.276

It is, in other words, a grave practice of cruel and willful disregard. “To ignore,” in this sense, is

both the most serious violation of slum moral sentiment, and the most quintessential stance of “the

rich.”

Bare humanity and the myth of the benevolent foreigner

[…]

Nathaniel (“Nate”) Roberts is a socio-cultural anthropologist who received his PhD from Columbia in 2008, and is has

been a Research Fellow at Max Planck since January 2011. Prior to this he taught anthropology to undergraduates at

Columbia University, and anthropology, South Asia studies and religion to PhD students at the New School for Social

Research and the University of Pennsylvania. Currently Nate is planning a new study of Tamil Pentecostals in Mumbai.

Nate’s major research interests are in the anthropology of religion (esp. Christianity) and secularism, the relationship

between national elite and subaltern subpopulations, and in the cultural logic of political representation and “democracy”.

276

The practice of social boycott is amongst the most powerful sanctions imposed in traditional caste society, and could

be temporary, or permanent as in the case of outcasteing. Amongst those who have suffered the legacy of

untouchability, therefore, the term puṟakkaṇippu can have upsetting connotations and is not used lightly. When before

realizing this I joked to my assistant that he had “ignored” me one day, he looked as if stricken and assured me that he

would never do that.

217

In Place of Ritual:

Secular City, Sacred Space, and the Guanyin Temple in Singapore

Goh, Daniel PS

National University of Singapore

Two Temples and a New Year’s Eve

The pedestrian street outside the two temples was bustling with makeshift stalls selling flowers and

other kinds of offerings and incense joss sticks of all sizes. Hawkers, when they were not busy

touting their religious wares to passer-bys, were lighting up oilcans to provide devotees with the fire

to light their joss sticks. Security officers were setting up metal barriers to direct the expected heavy

flow of worshippers. The Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple was lit up with colourful festive lights.

To younger worshippers, it is simply known as the Guanyin Temple. Older worshippers call it the Si

Beh Lor (Si Ma Lu in Hokkien) Temple. Si Beh Lor refers to the “fourth road”, or Waterloo Street,

which is partially closed off to automobiles in front of the temple, turning the street into a civic

square.

It was only 9 p.m., but there was already quite a buzz of devotees in front of the temple

burning and praying with their joss sticks before entering the main hall to give offerings to the

Bodhisattva famously known as the Goddess of Mercy. This was the night of the eve of the Chinese

Lunar New Year. For the Chinese in Singapore following traditional Chinese religious practices, this

was the place to be and the ritual to do, if not every year, then at least once in their lifetime. The

regulars would also stop in front of the Sri Krishnan Temple, where they would also burn some joss

sticks in prayer and bless themselves with holy incense. This very sight of Chinese worshippers

praying in the Chinese style in front of the Indian temple was the attraction of many Western tourists

taking a photograph of such a strange practice.

In their influential essay, Ritual and Its Consequences, Adam Seligman, Robert Weller,

Michael Puett and Bennett Simon argue against the old distinction between tradition and modernity

and the assignment of ritual as an unquestioned customary form of authority to the former. Ritual,

they argue, should not be contrasted to the modernity of conscious and rational individual autonomy.

This would merely continue the conceit of radical Protestant rejection of Catholic ritualism that went

through the secularization of the Enlightenment. Seligman et al argue instead that the opposite of

ritual is sincerity, “the belief that truth resides within the authentic self, that it is coherent, that

incoherence and fragmentation are therefore signs of insincerity” (2008: 181). Ritual is the never-

ending process of working with the fragmented, incoherent world accepted as such, separating and

combining boundaries continuously in creative play. The basic distinction, as Seligman et al argue, is

the “as if” subjunctive world ritual creates to make shared being possible versus the “as is” vision of

definitive, totalistic reality that produces absolute boundaries.

In this essay, I critically reflect on the attractive argument put forth by Seligman et al –

attractive because it rescues ritual from the thrash-bin of tradition and asserts its prevalence and

purpose for our social life. I am not sure that Seligman et al have removed themselves wholly from

the Protestant-Enlightenment conceit, since sincerity lies at the heart of the Protestant and

Enlightenment projects to arrive at the essence of authentic self. They have quite surely put ritual and

sincerity now on equal terms with each other, but are they really opposed and distinct modes of

social understanding and being in the world? Historically, Seligman et al argue that the tension

218

between sincerity and ritual drives their interplay underpinning religious change and reform through

the ages (2008: 14-15). Again, I see a certain Protestant-Enlightenment conceit – a teleological

history driven by dialectics hurtling towards modernity. What if their interplay produces a dynamic

stability that absorbs modernity and infects it, thereby domesticating its presence and drive? This is

the argument I make here by ethnographically reading the New Year’s Eve rituals in and around the

Guanyin Temple.

There is also the spatial dimension that I would like to highlight through my ethnography.

The two temples have been increasingly hemmed in by urban redevelopment in the past few decades.

First, the Bugis area to the east of the temples, which was once the site of one of Asia’s seediest

nightlife district, was redeveloped into a retail shopping complex, sanitized street market and public

housing estate in the mid-1980s. Shopping centers, office buildings, and private apartment

complexes sprung up around the temples. Through the 2000s, as part of the state’s larger agenda to

turn the old civic center and neighbouring ethnic quarters into a cosmopolitan heritage and cultural

hub, so as to transform Singapore into a global city, the Waterloo area to the south and west of the

temples, between two metro stations of the Downtown Line still under construction, was to be

transformed into a hub for the arts.

On New Year’s Eve, the Guanyin Temple rituals, already deeply spatial in its everyday

practice, spill out into the streets and radiate its spiritual meanings beyond Waterloo Street. How

does the religious spatiality of the temple affect the secular urbanism encroaching on it and vice

versa? I argue that the state has failed to pin down the religious spatiality as cultural heritage, and

instead, the temple continues to infect the secular urbanism with a vernacular spiritualism that resists

easy incorporation into the developmental state’s ideal global city and offers the alternative worlding

of cultural sentiments.

Greeting the New Year

I arrive at the cul-de-sac that marks the northern end of Waterloo Street that remains opened to

automobiles. The road leading to the cul-de-sac is bounded by the aptly named Fortune Centre, a

multi-storey square-block shopping centre filled with small proprietors, and the Stamford Arts Centre,

an old Japanese school of the colonial era converted into a multi-tenanted arts building. The National

Arts Council manages the Arts Centre as part of the Waterloo arts belt. On the other hand, without

much planning, but by the din of market logic, Fortune Centre has become the place to go to for

organic and vegetarian Chinese food because of its proximity to Guanyin Temple.

Entering the square in front of the Guanyin Temple and Sri Krishnan Temple, I experience a

time-warp back into the ‘80s Singapore of my youth, when I used to attend school in the

neighbourhood. Street stalls had been set up to sell flowers, offerings and different types of incense

joss sticks. Hawkers weaved in and out of the stalls and the crowd to tout their wares, while

worshippers and tourists – it was hard to distinguish the two – milled about the entrance to the

Guanyin Temple. Clouds of incense smoke wafted up from the front of the temple and the smoke

was gradually blanketing the square with its sharp scent and a slight sting to the eyes. I was reminded

that this temple was once part of a cultural complex that covered the Rochor and Bugis area, a place

of night markets offering cheap goods, entertainment and food dotted with mini-religious shrines.

Urban redevelopment had isolated the Guanyin Temple, as modern shopping centres and public

housing blocks now surround it. It is even separated from its sister Sri Krishnan Temple by a private

apartment block. So it seems.

219

It was still early, three hours before midnight, and the entrance to the Temple was still

navigable. At the center of the courtyard outside the front doors of main hall of the Temple was

placed a giant urn for joss sticks to be stuck into. Already, a crowd was milling about the urn.

Worshippers bought their joss sticks outside in the square, lit them from fire provided by the hawkers,

and came into the temple to greet the New Year. The ideal spot would be somewhere in front of the

urn at the center line running from the Guanyin statue to the urn and out through the main gate of the

Temple. A worshipper would walk into the courtyard facing Guanyin, turn around with back facing

Guanyin, paipai with the joss sticks facing up to the heavens, turn around to face Guanyin, and

paipai with the joss sticks again before sticking them into the urn.

Due to the heavy crowd, the joss sticks stuck into the urn were quickly taken out by workers,

still smoldering, and thrown into a metal bin, so that space could be cleared for other worshippers. A

boy turned to his father to ask whether this would affect their family’s prayers, as joss sticks were

supposed to burn down with their ashes joining the pile in the urn. The father replied, “no, as long as

we are sincere (zhen xin), our prayers would be heard.” Before the temple was reconstructed in 1982,

candles and incense used to be burned inside the main hall. The official reason for moving the urn

outside is to prevent incense burning from staining the ceiling.277 But there is another explanation:

moving a popular ritual outside the main hall. Indeed, at the center of the main hall towards the front

altar is a specially marked off by beige tiles with a large lotus motif in the middle, where one is

supposed to take off shoes to enter. This is the area for individual quiet prayer and meditation.

One could interpret moving the urn outside as a rationalizing reformist move that shifts a

traditional folk practice out as a compromise, so that the hall could be cleared for undisturbed

Buddhist meditation while folk worshippers can continue to enjoy incense burning. If so, such an

intention would have failed in its modernizing goal. With the urn outside at the door, offering incense

now becomes the rite of passage to enter the main hall. Few worshippers skipped the step before

entering the main hall. If prayers of sincerity in search of the authentic self were expected in the

main hall, then they would have to be preceded by ritual. Burning joss sticks is now seen as an act of

purification as much as it is an act of ritual offering, such that one’s doing became the foil for the

testing of sincerity – the “as if” as a way of discovering “as is” – as the father’s reply to the enquiring

son attests.

The modernizing goal would have also failed because the theatrical ritual of jostling to be the

first to stick joss sticks into the urn at the stroke of midnight to greet the New Year has come to

define the public identity and image of the Guanyin Temple. By 11 p.m., the crowd at the courtyard

swelled and packed the area, everyone holding up large joss sticks above head. A temple staff acted

as the master of ceremony, standing on an elevated platform constructed for the event. Speaking into

the sound system, sometimes shouting, the master of ceremony maintained order and tried to keep a

path clear of waiting devotees so that other worshippers could enter the Temple. He had to disrupt

the ritual practices of worshippers a number of times because some took too long to do the paipai

with the joss sticks and were jamming up the pathway, causing consternation to the waiting devotees

who thought that the worshippers were trying to usurp the best spot to greet the New Year. Moments

of sincerity intruded into the ritual space. When the things went smoothly and he did not have to

maintain order, the master of ceremony reminded the devotees that they should go straight into the

Temple after sticking their joss sticks into the urn, leave through the side doors and go straight home,

and not go shopping outside at the night market further down the road, to preserve the blessings of

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Naidu Ratnala Thulaja, “Kwang Im Thong Hood Cho Temple”, Singapore Infopedia, National Library Board

Singapore, 2005, http://infopedia.nl.sg/articles/SIP_275_2005-01-03.html (accessed 19 Feb 2013).

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the incense.

The tension was building up, as those at the back pushed those in front, as everyone

inched towards the urn. Hot ashes dropped on everyone’s head and shoulders, adding to tension in

the air. By 11.45 p.m., the situation was getting untenable. The master of ceremony was practically

shouting to keep order, while the crowd was shouting “huat ah!” (fa; in Hokkien), “prosper!”, in

rhythmic unison. At one point, the master of ceremony shouted to stop some devotees carrying joss

sticks from entering the main hall. At another, he had to persuade the elderly, children and pregnant

women to leave the courtyard, telling them that as long as their desire to pai nian (worship the New

Year) to Guanyin and Buddha was sincere, they did not have to participate in the ritual, as it was

dangerous for them.

Suddenly, at around 11.53 p.m., the crowd became pensively silent. Then just before 11.55

p.m., a segment of the crowd begin counting down from ten and everyone joined in. The master of

ceremony panicked and tried to calm everyone down, shouting it is not yet midnight. But he was

ignored. The crowd surged forward and the master of ceremony gave in and wished those who had

stuck their joss sticks into the urn five minutes early a Happy New Year, and turned on the drum

music to welcome the New Year. Worshippers began to enter the main hall, but most were still

holding out for midnight. When midnight arrived, after an orderly countdown led by the master of

ceremony, there was another surge with cries of “huat ah!” The crowd, satisfied, began to flow into

the Temple. Devotees, with faces and torso covered in ashes, put their hands together in prayer mode

as they walked into the main hall and paipai their way to the front altar. The work of the master of

ceremony was not yet over. For over an hour, a constant stream of worshippers flowed into the

courtyard to greet the New Year.

“I Go Say Thank You”

I observed the ritual from inside the main hall, standing in the spacious rear area behind the centre

reflection square. Benches were provided for people to rest. This was the liminal zone, the transition

space from self-interested, noisy and pushy religiosity to the quiet, solitary and reflective

prayerfulness of the centre square. Here, worshippers who had just gone through the trial of ashes

rest and get ready to enter the prayer zone still stinging with smoke, but now facing forward towards

Guanyin and quieting down.

Earlier, during the quieter parts of the night, I noticed a couple with a baby in a stroller

walking in to meet six male friends carrying large joss sticks and offerings. The group stood out in

many ways. They were young and spoke English, when the most common language heard in the

Temple was Mandarin. The couple was a Chinese man and an Indian lady, when the more common

mixed-race couples worshipping at the Temple was a White man and a Chinese lady. More

significantly, several of them were dressed in similar tee shirts, adorned gold chains, and spotted

colored hair that Chinese youths from working class background like to wear. They seemed to belong

to a close-knit fraternity of young businessmen.

As it turned out, the group was responsible for the premature countdown. When the

worshippers who stuck their joss sticks five minutes earlier than midnight streamed into the main

hall, the group came in with satisfied smiles on their faces. One member exclaimed, “We did it!”, as

the group congregated, chatted and patted each other on the back at the rear area. The men had

created their own group ritual within the larger ritual, carving out the five minutes of the old year to

fashion them into their own moments of the New Year. The five minutes stolen and offered back to

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the gods became the ritual marker of their fraternity. This is perhaps a clever exploitation of time in

the production of things – a magical materialism in affinity with the capitalist mode of production.

But one could also read it as a well-honed Chinese sensibility. As C. Fred Blake reflects on

the Chinese “material spirit” of burning paper replica of valuable things, the distinction between the

natural and the artificial is irrelevant in the Chinese lifeworld: “That which is real, that which is

relevant, that which holds value, is man-made”. The distinction turns on the “imperfection and

perfection of workmanship in creating an authentic world” (2011: 213). The pai nian ritual at the

Guanyin Temple belongs to the Chinese material spirit of burning valuable things. The wait holding

on to the joss sticks, enduring the hot ashes, and rush to the urn risking burns, is the ritual work that

produces the authenticity of the New Year that is never just about the passage of time. The Dragon

passes time to the Snake, handing over the world to his care. What the fraternity who forged their

own group ritual did was to carve their own niche in this authentic world of fortune and fate, so that

the group could confront the larger forces of the world in solidarity and good faith. There is no

distinction between “as if” and “as is” here. Ritual and sincerity flowed and merged into each other

to produce a consciousness that is not propositional, but affirmative: “it is”.

As the fraternity chatted away, one member suddenly broke away and said to the group, “I go

say thank you.” Turning around to face the altar, he put his hands together and turned his eyes down,

and paipai his way to the main altar. The man paused in front of Guanyin, joining a crowd deep in

solitary, quiet prayer. He returned to the fraternity, refreshed, and members took turns to go up to

Guanyin to say thank you. It was a sincerity made possible by the ritual of greeting the New Year,

and a sincerity that could only be expressed and manifested individually after the group ritual.

Ritual and sincerity melded in front of the altar. Worshippers prayed with their hands brought

together, fingers touching each other and facing up, but at different heights. Some held their hands at

the level of their chest, close to their hearts. Some held them close to their mouths. Others held them

at their foreheads, with heads gently bent. A few held them up high above their heads while they

lower their heads in standing prostration. Hands were held still, moved ever so slightly, or shook

vigorously up and down. Many hands were empty, but some held flowers, young bamboo shoots and

red packets. Some worshippers murmured Buddhist chants, while others prayed for luck, health, or

fortune, or simply thanked Guanyin for blessings bestowed. Everyone was oblivious to each other’s

presence, introverted into their own world of communion with Guanyin, performing their own

private rituals to produce the spiritual space of the self.

The presence of others was almost incidental, as worshippers focused on the altar. The altar

has a golden statue of Guanyin sitting on a lotus 221at the center. Buddha, in brilliant chrome, sits

behind her on a raised lotus, such that when worshippers gaze on Guanyin, the shadow of Buddha

envelops the spiritual space of the self. Hua Tuo, the legendary doctor of the Three Kingdoms period,

sits on Guanyin’s right, while Bodhidharma, the first Chinese patriarch of Buddhism credited for

founding Ch’an Buddhism (popularly known by the Japanese name, Zen) and Shaolin martial arts,

sits on her left. Devotees pray to Hua Tuo for health, his benevolent gaze accentuated by his wizened

long black beard. I was standing in front of him when I was gradually nudged by the crowd pushing

their way front to donate money and obtain flowers from long pots placed in front of Hua Tuo to

either place at the altar as offering to Guanyin or to bring home as blessings. Others buy flowers

from vendors outside the Temple and place them in the urns as offerings to replenish the stock.

At the center of the long front altar table, worshippers placed a row of New Year ritual

offerings with individualized significance. There were willows, sticky cakes, oranges, pineapples,

green bananas, pomelos, fruit baskets, flower petals, and joss sticks, among other things. Gradually,

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because I was not worshipping but was taking notes on my smart phone, I was nudged by

worshippers edging to the front, towards Bodhidharma’s side of the altar, where long pots of flowers

were also placed for the trade of offerings. While I was standing to the side, observing the

proceedings, a man went to the side of the altar, took a red plastic offering tray, and emptied a bag of

gold-wrapper sweets unto the tray. Carrying the tray piled up with small gold ingots, with his two

hands in a prayerful mode, he walked to the center and paipai by moving the tray up and down in a

gesture of offering. The mountain of gold ingots joined the other offerings on the front altar table.

Spiritual Encounters

The centre square marked off by the differently colored beige tiles has a border of black tiles with

floral motifs. Shoes are to be taken off to enter this prayer zone. Worshippers took on different prayer

positions, caught up in their own private spiritual space of prayer. Some are kneeling up, while others

are kneeling down, sitting their bottoms on their feet. Some are in kneeling prostration, while others

are sitting in a lotus position. Like the standing worshippers in the front of the altar, hands were put

together at different levels to paipai, moving at different speeds and holding an offering or nothing. A

few devotees were holding scriptures and meditating on them.

Spatially, the Temple is organized in such a way as to facilitate the different combination of

ritual and sincerity that could be customized by each individual worshipper. The courtyard served as

the purification space where the folk ritual of joss stick burning is performed before one turns to the

sincerity of solitary, introverted prayer. The rear area of the main hall is the liminal space of

transition, where family and friends could wait for each other, and the secular was allowed to intrude

with groups chatting with each other and people took calls on their mobile phones with their back

facing the altar. Those who faced forward prepared themselves for quiet prayer. The centre prayer

zone anchors the main hall and creates the atmosphere of stillness and quietude. Worshippers

walking to the front altar have to walk from the sides to approach Guanyin, compelling them to adopt

a prayer mode as they walk past the centre prayer zone. Approaching the altar from the side,

worshippers are humbled into a denial of the self, walking pass either Hua Tuo with his benevolent

gaze or Bodhidharma with his martial look, before coming face to face with Guanyin. This is quite

different from a configuration that allows the worshippers to walk straight up to the altar through the

centre, in which the self would be in the foreground of consciousness as worshippers walked

confronting Guanyin face to face.

Moving worshippers through the sides also make for serendipitous spiritual encounters.

Earlier in the night, I was standing by the wall at the side of Hua Tuo taking notes. A mentally and

physically handicapped man came up, stood beside me and went into deep prayer, his hands put

together and brought to his murmuring mouth. For some reason, he did not move to the front centre

and was contented to be praying from side. His family members walked up to the front to worship

and he was praying while waiting for them. I became accustomed to his presence and felt a certain

spiritual calm listening to his prayerful murmurings. Then I felt a sudden jolt as someone grabbed

my upper arm and pulled me towards him rather strongly. He was walking away and, for some

unknown reason, I did not resist him and went along. We walked a few steps, until the man’s woman

companion shouted and laughed at him for pulling the wrong man. He turned around in shock and

apologized. We laughed in good spirits and wished each other Happy New Year. He then took his

handicapped brother who was standing beside me and left with all of us in smiles.

After I was nudged from the side of Hua Tuo to the other side of Bodhidharma, I stood at the

side of the opposite wall to observe and take my notes. At the appointed hour of 10 p.m., Temple

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staff cleared the front altar area of standing worshippers, and cleared the front portion of the centre

prayer zone of sitting worshippers. Everyone stood up in the centre prayer zone and others lined up

on the sides. A group of lay monks in brown-golden robes and nuns in dark blue robes entered in a

procession to lead the worshippers in prayer in the centre square facing the altar. Their hands were

not put together in the usual paipai fashion but rolled together in a ball at chest level and were

moved from left to right to left. Worshippers continued to paipai in their own individual fashion. The

lay monks and nuns then turned around and faced the main door and the crowd, and continued their

paipai with rolled hands. The crowd reciprocated, some bowing, others putting their hands together

or rolled their hands together. Some worshippers were waiting for this encounter and left contented

to have received the blessings of the lay monks and nuns. They left by procession out of the side

door and the main hall quickly returned to its individualized modes of prayer and worship. To avoid

the packed street in front of the Temple, the head monk, an old man with a walking stick, left through

the side of the altar. As he left, Temple volunteers rolled their hands to paipai to greet him and he

reciprocated in kind.

On both sides of the hall by the wall were counters with volunteers manning it. They were

not doing anything in particular but were observing the worshippers and would help anyone with

enquiries. On the counters were placed wrapped sweets in a big bowl. Worshippers could help

themselves to the sweets and this was a place of encounter with old friends and acquaintances. It was

near the counter on Bodhidharma’s side that I met an ex-student of mine. She came up to me while I

was writing my notes and gazing at Bodhidharma. “Prof! Happy New Year!”, she greeted me with a

beaming smile. I did not know why, but I was equally happy to see her. I remember her as a student I

had to counsel because she was facing some personal problems and was missing class early in the

semester. After the talk, she quickly picked herself up and transfigured into an enthusiastic,

conscientious and vivacious student leading her team of classmates in a community service project

for the course. She became a teacher after graduation, seeking to inspire young people to better

themselves. I asked, “Do you worship here often? I thought you were a Christian.” She replied, “I

used to be. But my family comes here regularly and I found myself loving the peace I get here

compared to the emotional release in church. When I am troubled, I like to come here and sit at the

centre to pray quietly and think about life.” I gave her a wide knowing smile. She did not ask why I

was there, as she probably guessed I was doing research. We said goodbyes, as her family was

waiting for her to leave.

Though I was not there at the Temple to worship or pray, the two encounters left me with a

sense of peace that I have not felt since I was a Catholic youth immersed in meditation sessions at an

old village church on a knoll in the quiet countryside. There was something about the transformation

of the self that was brought about by the combination of ritual and sincerity. The veneer of

guardedness and self-interest was removed, as was the performativity of self-representation. People

encountered each other not “as if” they were fellow Buddhists, not “as is” with their authentic selves.

Encounters took place in the immanent “it is” mode affirming the accidence or coincidence of the

meeting. There were no implications or consequences to the encounters, only a strange sense of

feeling pleased and being at peace with one’s place in the world.

Soon after the encounter with my student, a nun in Tibetan Buddhist robes, who had been

lingering at the sides and observing, walked up to a volunteer behind the front altar. She asked

whether there was something like a brochure of the Temple she could have. The volunteer

disappeared to the back and came back with a Temple calendar. The nun was pleased and they bowed

to each other. Later on, I saw her in the rear area sitting on a bench and looking through the calendar

happily. Like me, she did not come to pray or worship, but to observe, for different reasons. But both

of us left the Temple with encounters that seemed to have touched us.

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Lord Krishna, the God of Fortune and the World

Outside the Temple, devotees lined up between the metal barricades to enter the courtyard. It was

quite a sight to behold at night, especially when the devotees moved forward in an orderly and

deliberate manner carrying their smoldering joss sticks, as though in a religious procession. The

oilcan fires set up at the side by hawkers added to the processional mood. The line snaked towards

the night market. At the tail of the line, latecomers were buying joss sticks to join the impromptu

procession. Groups of devotees huddled round oilcan fires to light their joss sticks. This was the

induction into the greeting the New Year ritual.

As a whole, the greeting the New Year ritual is a scaled up version of an everyday visit to the

Temple. On a normal visit, a worshipper would get small joss sticks from a hawker outside the

Temple, proceed to light the joss sticks in the courtyard, paipai with the joss sticks, place the joss

sticks in the urn, and then enter the main hall. Everything is bigger and longer on New Year's Eve.

Large joss sticks, large fires, procession to the Temple, coordinated collective placing of joss sticks

in the urn, and large crowds in the main hall. It reproduces the world appropriate for the temporal

scale of the New Year and engenders reflection on the path of destiny that one has been traveling

through the years. It produces a search for the authentic self and the coherence of one’s fate in the

ever-changing material world.

Down the street at the night market, at the circle marking the end of Waterloo Street, where

the market turns and continues towards Bugis village, a giant God of Fortune statue had been

installed. Around the base of the God of Fortune was placed twelve posters presenting the Chinese

zodiac fortune readings for the New Year, in both Chinese and English languages. The reading for

those born in the Year of the Ox was as follows:

Ox friends in the year of the snake will be “blessed” with both the good and bad. Good stars

are shining on you, bringing good fortune. However, be cautious of villains and mix with the

“right” company of friends. Avoid investments and lending money to prevent heavy losses.

Focus on the regular income from your job, maintain a low profile and avoid unnecessary

arguments. Business partnerships should be avoided in the possibility the partnerships may

fail. You will see the “true-colors” of some of your friends and will realize who your true

friends are! As for the Ox kids, this year will be a year to achieve outstanding results, do

study hard and smart! Always cherish the people around you. Take good care of your health

and family members especially of the elderly! Pray for safety and good health for all! Be

extra careful on roads and safety. For those who are single, congratulations! You might meet

your ideal partner this year. Marriage couple should be wary of unwanted attention from the

opposite sex, especially from the 2nd half of the year. Stay faithful to your spouse to avoid a

broken marriage or you might live with regret for the rest of your life!

There was a good crowd of people reading the posters, many of them prior to buying joss

sticks to join the procession. The God of Fortune was the threshold totem marking the turning of the

secular material world into the sacred space of the Guanyin Temple. Here, a would-be worshipper

walks from Bugis night market selling all manner of cheap goods and services to meet a reading of

his fortune. The fortune reading cannot be read “as if” or “as is”. In fact, it induces the reflection on

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one’s life and its fragments – friends, enemies, investments, job, office politics, business, studies,

family, health, travels, love, and sex – and challenges one to search for some coherence in the New

Year ahead.

Set thus on the consciousness of the world and one’s place and path in it, the worshipper goes

down Waterloo Street and buys incense sticks. The worshipper lights the sticks with other

worshippers, sharing a fire, all silently reflecting on the fragments that one is going to seek

coherence for in the ritual to come. The procession through the dark street continues the reflection as

the worshipper looks toward the light emanating from the Guanyin Temple, refracted by the incense

smoke from the hopes of worshippers who have gone before him. With a resolute stab into the urn,

the abandoning of the joss sticks representing his life’s fragments also marks the moment the

worshipper enters into the sacred space and discovers his authentic self bathed in Guanyin’s

benevolence. One may ask for healing, wealth, or good academic results from Guanyin, paipai with

red packets or gold ingots, but the worshipper is always thanking her for the blessings already

bestowed, for being there in the Temple, arriving from the material world and leaving its fragments

behind.

For many, the ritual does not end at the Guanyin Temple. Many leave in the direction of the

Sri Krishnan Temple and make a conscious attempt to stop at the Chinese-style altar constructed just

outside the door of the Temple. On New Year’s Eve, whole families stopped at Sri Krishnan to paipai

Lord Krishna with incense joss sticks. The regulars blessed themselves with the smoke of holy

incense burning in a hanging pot of charcoal. A few entered the Temple to get a bindi (sacred red dot)

applied to their forehead by the priests and to buy a tray of ghee lamps for offering to the gods of the

Temple. With a small donation, worshippers received a red card from the Temple that had the God of

Fortune inside wishing the recipient a Happy Chinese New Year, and a slip of paper notifying

Chinese devotees of the dates of the special services provided for them. The special services track the

1st and 15th lunar days, special festivals for the Guanyin Temple and Chinese festival days.

In popular discourse, this hybridization of practices has earned praises for expressing the

multiculturalism of Singapore. This attribution of meaning only serves to domesticate a ritual

hybridity that does not have any intrinsic meaning. The practices of Guanyin Temple worshippers at

the Sri Krishnan Temple must be seen from the perspective of the worshippers, whose consciousness,

when worshipping at the Sri Krishnan, is already conditioned by the visit to Guanyin Temple. The

offering of joss sticks and ghee lamps must be seen in the aftermath of the production of sincerity

that took place in procession from the God of Fortune to the Guanyin Temple urn, and to the front

alter of the main hall. Shaped by the consciousness that the world already exists as “it is”, the

Chinese worshipper cannot ignore Lord Krishna as he passes by. It is not “as if” Lord Krishna exists

that the Chinese worshipper offers joss sticks, but that he exists because he is there, living next to

Guanyin, and therefore should be respected and worshipped. It is not “as is” an authentic Chinese

that the Chinese worshipper offers joss sticks to Lord Krishna, but, as “it is”, Lord Krishna would

expect the Chinese devotee to offer joss sticks to him.

If the God of Fortune marked the threshold totem that had the secular material world fading

into the sacred spiritual space of the Guanyin Temple, then Lord Krishna was the threshold deity that

guarded the exit from the sacred space back into the material world. The exit was not the same as the

entrance; the God of Fortune and Lord Krishna were not equivalent. Exiting from Sri Krishnan back

into the part of Waterloo Street opened to automobiles, bounded by the commercial culture of

Fortune Centre and the state culture of the Stamford Arts Centre, spirituality slipped to infect the

secular and revive the material spirits of the Chinese lifeworld.

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The Failure of Heritage and Global City Making

The only building in the area that has been given heritage conservation status is the Stamford Arts

Centre building. Billed as one of the twenty heritage schools in the city centre area by the Urban

Redevelopment Authority, it is known as the Former Stamford Girls’ School. Indeed, all heritage

school buildings, except the Alsagoff Arab School, have been disemboweled by what the

conservation circle would call “adaptive reuse” for commercial and state cultural purposes,

seventeen of them carrying the descriptor “former” in their moniker. My former school, St. Joseph’s

Institution, at the other end of Waterloo Street from the Guanyin Temple, is now the Singapore Art

Museum. The Authority writes, in the pamphlet featuring the conserved heritage schools:

School buildings are special places. They are sites of shared memories which bond each

successive generation of students who pass through its gates. Schools leave both tangible

and intangible imprints on their surroundings, whether they are the sounds of children’s

laughter as you pass by its doors, or the sight of a familiar clock tower that marks a journey

home. Many school buildings have become architectural or community landmarks, lending a

physical and social character to their neighborhoods. … Today, in recognition of the

importance of schools as important social institutions and a cornerstone of local memories, a

number of old schools have been recognized as national monuments or conservation

buildings. Some still serve as schools, while others have found new uses. Overall, they will

continue to serve as personal and community landmarks to those who have passed through

their gates, or have simply passed by them on their daily journeys.278

The Former Stamford Girls’ School building is neither very special architecturally nor

particularly memorable. Built by the Japanese population in 1920 for the Japanese School, it housed

the Stamford Girls’ School, a government school established in 1951 as sister school to the premier

Raffles Girls’ School (Stamford Raffles being the British founder of the colonial town), from 1955 to

1984 and the successor Stamford Primary School to 1986. Its furtive use for short periods of time—

twenty years as a school for the foreign Japanese population, and just over thirty years for a regular

government school—hardly commend it as a heritage building for the local and national community.

Its inclusion in the list of heritage schools in the city center helped the Authority to round up the

number to a substantial twenty, so that the global city center, touted as a unique mix of old Asian

colonial buildings and sparkling skyscrapers, could be haunted up with the ghosts of cultural pasts to

give it its heritage branding. Symbolically, as ordained by the postcolonial politics of multiracial and

multireligious representation, it is needed to pair with the Former Victoria School as the only two

colonial and secular government schools in the list of Christian and Catholic mission schools and

ethnic Chinese, Indian and Arabic schools with links to their respective temples, religion or clan

associations.

Compared to the immense popularity of the Guanyin Temple and the Sri Krishnan Temple

through the generations of Singaporeans, the Former Stamford Girls’ School pales in significance.

278

Urban Redevelopment Authority, Heritage Schools, information pamphlet, Singapore: The Authority, 2010.

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Yet, the Former Stamford Girls’ School is the only conserved building in the neighbourhood. The

original Guanyin Temple was built in 1884. Over the decades, usage outgrew architecture, but it was

only when the state began to redevelop the adjacent Bugis area that the temple was demolished and

rebuilt. The new temple building opened in 1982, doubling in size to accommodate the faithful.

Statues of the three main deities, Hua Tuo, Guanyin, and Bodhidharma, and Buddha, were moved

from separate altars into a common prayer hall with Buddha sitting behind Guanyin, which seemed

to match the new postcolonial order where the pluralism of ethnic and religious communities were

now combined as equals into a new nation guarded by the state. However, while the Former

Stamford Girls’ School was awarded conservation status in 1994, only the site where the Temple sits

was designated a historic site in 2001 by the National Heritage Board, mainly to commemorate the

use of the original temple as a safe refuge during the Second World War.

In the modern heritage consciousness of the nation-state, the “as is” authenticity of physical

architecture with embedded significances are played off against the “as if” imagination of collective

memories, just so that community lives could be reorganized and reordered for the regime of surplus

value secured by the developmental state. The Stamford Girls’ School is therefore now the Stamford

Arts Centre playing the function of infusing artistic vibrancy into the global city. The Guanyin

Temple stands outside this regime, but yet it could not be ignored because of the central position it

occupies in the historical and cultural life of Singaporeans.

Worse still, the practical “it is” engagement with the world that led to its reconstruction in the

1980s confounds the modern heritage consciousness. The temple building is not sacred in itself.

Sacred space could be reconfigured, because its sacredness is found in the relationship between the

deities (for the statue of Guanyin is Guanyin), the worshippers and the world. If the mortals had

changed, becoming more national and multicultural thus, if the world had changed, becoming caught

up in postcolonial developmentalism, then so the immortals shifted themselves to form a reorganized

cosmic order to accommodate the world. Authenticity resides in changing rituals of relationships, not

in the eternal artifacts of culture. Not coincidentally, the Temple has played an important

philanthropic role in the health, education and arts field in the past two decades, often intentionally

reaching out to non-Chinese beneficiaries.

The Guanyin Temple is thus given an honorary role in the urban heritage universe of the state,

without the “as is” authenticity of conserved status because it was reconstructed, but with the “as if”

imagination of having played its part in the coming of the nation during the War. The fact that it

could not be ignored meant when the developmental state inaugurated the first Singapore Biennale of

Arts in 2006, the Guanyin Temple was chosen as a heritage site hosting international artworks. The

Biennale was the anchor cultural event for the International Monetary Fund-World Bank annual

meetings in the city, titled “Singapore 2006: Global City, World of Opportunities”. Importantly,

“Belief” was chosen as the theme of the Biennale, in part to showcase the racial and religious

harmony of multicultural Singapore, and in part to highlight the heritage treasures of conserved

religious buildings to give the global city a unique civic glow.

Seen as sensitive interventions into religious spaces, three sets of site-specific artworks were

placed in Guanyin Temple. First, Costa Rican artist Federico Herrero painted the walls and columns

at the side of the main entrance of the temple prayer hall with his trademark round coloured things

with eyes-like circles interspersed with lines that evoke the masses caught up in the urban

environment. But domesticated by the temple walls and columns, they looked like representations of

the multitude of worshippers flowing in and out of the hall, their eyes caught between the immortals

and the world. Simply titled Painting, Herrero’s act was less an intervention than an allusion to the

spiritual shadows of faithful cast on the walls of the temple.

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Second, Chinese artist Xu Bing produced a carpet to replace the red carpet at the center of the

prayer hall where devotees sit or kneel to pray and meditate, made of a square of 841 characters that

could be read in all directions for multiple meanings. It mimics a famous ancient Chinese palindrome,

but is composed using Buddhist scriptures with Xu Bing’s own calligraphic system: an ironic

combination of Roman alphabets into Chinese-like characters. Squeezing the West into the Chinese

world, Prayer Carpet seems almost to mock the faithful for pursuing Western dreams with the succor

of Guanyin. However, the piece was substituted with another carpet with secular writings after the

Temple leaders felt uneasy that devotees would be trampling on holy scripture.279 The original carpet

was instead displayed at the National Museum. Thus, Xu Bing’s intervention was subverted by

misunderstanding the temple space as sacred in itself, that it made logical and aesthetic sense to

adorn the sacred space with a sacred carpet. The prayer carpet was always profane; it could not be

sacred. But once a carpet has holy text on it, because a holy word in its physical manifestation is

sacred, the carpet could not be stepped upon, just as the statue of the deities and the offerings to them

could not be too.

Third, Taiwanese artist Tsai Charwei performed the Lotus Mantra, writing the Buddhist

Lotus Sutra, which is part dedicated to Guanyin, curator Eugene Tan writes, “onto lotus seeds, roots

and flowers, representing the Buddhist concepts of the speech, body, and mind, respectively.” Placed

as offerings, they dried and rotted, with the writings disintegrating with nature. Tsai also wrote the

same sutra on living lotus flowers placed in a pond specially installed in the temple, with the writings

preserved along with the flowers. Tan writes, “The juxtaposition between the two different states of

existence embodied by the lotus flowers highlights the intricate and complex relationships that exists

in systems of belief such as Buddhism, between the living and the dying.”280 But such theological

conceits about the “as is” truth essence of self and the universe was lost on the worshippers

concerned with life and death, live, in flesh. At most, they were bemused with art tourists, like me,

who did not follow the flow of worship and stood gazing at Tsai’s lotus flowers instead of Guanyin

herself, “as if” the flowers connected us to the world.

Daniel P.S. Goh is Associate Professor of Sociology at the National University of Singapore. He specializes in

comparative-historical sociology, urban studies, and cultural studies, and researches state formation, multiculturalism,

religion, and heritage conservation politics. He is lead co-editor of Race and Multiculturalism in Malaysia and

Singapore and has published articles on urbanisms in Space and Culture, Urban Studies, International Journal of Urban

and Regional Research, and Geoforum. He is currently working on a manuscript on the cultural politics of heritage and

global city making in Hong Kong, Penang and Singapore.

279

Gerhard Haupt and Pat Binder, “Xu Bing, 1st Singapore Biennale”, Universes in Universe, http://universes-in-

universe.de/car/singapore/eng/2006/tour/nat-mus/img-05.htm, 2006, accessed 10 June 2013. 280

Eugene Tan, “Tsai, Charwei”, in Ben Slater (ed.), belief: Singapore Biennale 2006, 4th

September to 12th

November

2006, Singapore: National Arts Council, 2006, p. 30.

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