Nation, State and the Modern Transformation of Korean Social Structure in the Early Twentieth Century

When assessing social change in modern Korea, the tremendous material transformation of the second half of the twentieth century has tended to obscure the advances of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This article examines the distinctive means by which both nation building and state making contributed to the formation of Korea's modern social structure well before the full advent of industrialisation and urbanisation. It argues that the processes of national identity formation, particularly in the absence of an autonomous state during the period of Japanese colonial rule (1910–45), drew from multiple stimuli, including religion, class and a recognition of the urgency of social levelling. The state, meanwhile, followed different developmental paths in its institutional and ideological manifestations, but in both instances, the contributions of Koreans themselves to the process, even during the colonial period, placed a lasting imprint on the state's relationship to modern social change. The legacy of this connection continues to shape how Koreans perceive both their present and their past.