Rethinking Democracies

Translation

“We are all part of this shared struggle”

DKSC translates a powerful speech by a Korean protester, examining how neoliberalism and social fragmentation enable autocracy. The speech was delivered during mass demonstrations against former President Yoon in January 2025.
“28 Hours at Namtaeryeong: I felt ashamed of my country. But I also saw its future in these women.”
DKSC shares Kang Kwang-seok’s firsthand account of the Namtaeryeong protest where farmers and citizens united against corruption in December 2024. This alliance between rural activists and urban youth reshaped Korean social movements.

Books

Namhee Lee. 2022. Memory Construction and the Politics of Time in Neoliberal South Korea. Duke University Press.

Namhee Lee explores how social memory and neoliberal governance in post-1987 South Korea have disavowed the revolutionary politics of the past. *Open Access
Namhee Lee and Kim Won. ed. 2016. The South Korean Democratization Movement: A Sourcebook. The AKS Press.

The most comprehensive set of primary texts from the South Korean movement published in English to date, this book is an essential reference for anyone interested in South Korean history and culture in general, and the democratization movement in particular.
Yoonkyung Lee. 2022. Between the Streets and the Assembly: Social Movements, Political Parties, and Democracy in South Korea. University of Hawaii Press.

Between the Streets and the Assembly suggests a different possibility of political process, one in which civic groups and participatory citizens, not political parties, are the primary drivers of democratic politics.
Jiyeon Kang. 2016. Igniting the Internet: Youth and Activism in Postauthoritarian South Korea. University of Hawai’i Press.

Igniting the Internet offers a unique perspective on how local actors experience and remember the cultural dynamics of Internet-born activism and how these experiences shape the political identities of a generation who has essentially come of age in cyberspace, the so-called digital natives or millennials.
Hieyoon Kim. 2023. Celluloid Democracy: Cinema and Politics in Cold War South Korea. University of California Press.

The first book to offer a history of film activism in post-1945 South Korea, Celluloid Democracy shows how Korean film workers during the Cold War reclaimed cinema as an ecology in which democratic discourses and practices could flourish. *Open Access
Hwasook Nam. 2021. Women in the Sky: Gender and Labor in the Making of Modern Korea. Cornell University Press. (한국어판: <체공녀 연대기, 1931-2011> 후마니타스, 2024)

Hwasook Nam asks why women workers in South Korea have been relegated to the periphery in activist and mainstream narratives despite a century of persistent militant struggle and indisputable contributions to the labor movement and successful democracy movement.

Documentaries

The 6 Days Struggle at the Myong-Dong Cathedral
명성, 그 6일의 기록
1997
Dong-won Kim
Words Kept In A Stone: Sit-dowm Strike Against An Illegal Ballot In Guro Ward
돌 속에 갇힌 말-구로구청 부정투표함 항의농성사건
2004
Naru
The Fool Doesn’t Catch a Cold
바보는 감기에 걸리지 않는다
2008
Kyungman Kim
Yongsan
용산
2010
Jeong-hyun Mun
The Day that Bastard Became President
그 자식이 대통령이 되던 날
2011
Kyung-hwa Son
Two Doors
두 개의 문
2012
Il-ran Kim & Jiyou Hong
Candle Wave Feminist
시국페미
2017
Garam Kangyu
Gong-dong-jeong-beom
공동정범
2018
Il-ran Kim & Hyuk-sang Lee
What Bonds Us
당신과 나를 잇는 법
2023
Yoonkyum Kim, Nuri Yun, Inseo Yeo, Jaewon Yoo, Subin Lim

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