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Life in Nature Documentaries: Narrating Counterurbanization and Masculinity in Post-Developmental South Korea

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Su-Kyoung Hwang
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Abstract

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This article studies the narratives of counter-urbanization as presented in contemporary South Korean documentaries. In recent decades, there has been a surge of ethnographic media productions with a return-to-nature theme, highlighting urban-to-rural migration. What appears as a Thoreauesque pursuit of pastoral life in the woods reveals the traumatic aftereffects of the 1960s-80s rapid industrialization as well as the 1990s Asian Financial Crisis that resulted in layoffs, bankruptcies, homelessness, and migration. This article analyzes a selection of counter-urbanist documentaries through the dual lens of social class and masculinity, especially considering South Korea's hypermasculine industrialization and neoliberal ethos of survivalist individualism. It also examines cross-generational perspectives on counter-urbanization to recover human agency.

Keywords

Natural personFarming boysMasculinitySalarymanNeoliberalismIMF crisis
Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 22 , Issue 9 , September 2024 , e1
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2003

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