2011/09/01 by Jin-Yeon Kang · 3 citations
Social Sciences · #Japanese History and Culture #Chinese history and philosophy #Asian Culture and Media Studies
paper · doi:10.1111/j.1467-6443.2011.01400.x
openalex publication_date 2011/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23
The historical experience of colonialism exerts a profound influence upon emergent postcolonial societies. Yet colonial legacies are not passed on in precisely the same way; rather, they are contingent on particular historical processes. In the case of Korea, Japanese colonialism gave way to a brief liberation phase that was followed by another foreign occupation (the U.S. in the south and the U.S.S.R. in the north) during which efforts were made to rebuild the political community. Focusing on the 1946 people's uprisings, the largest popular social movement during the U.S. occupation period, as a pivotal historical event, this article examines why the primary target of the uprisings was not the foreign military government but fellow Koreans, especially police officers, bureaucrats, and wealthy landlords, thereby revealing how Japanese colonial rule influenced the movement's choice of targets as well as its eventual failure. Through this historical analysis, I demonstrate that internal conflicts among Koreans, which were created and rearticulated through Japanese colonial rule, became critical sources of social and political struggles under the American occupation, the important consequence of which lies in the creation of a pattern of internal exclusion that characterized South Korea's post-war political trajectory.