24 3월 [Article] The Role of Heritage in the Context of Dictatorship, Then Democracy: South Korea’s Heritage Management Between 1961 and 1993
Yilsoon Paek & Minjae Zoh (2025) The Role of Heritage in the Context of Dictatorship, Then Democracy: South Korea’s Heritage Management Between 1961 and 1993, Heritage & Society, 18(2), 210-224, DOI: 10.1080/2159032X.2025.2483149
Abstract
From 1961 to 1988, South Korea experienced two dictatorial regimes, and both military dictators selected certain heritage sites to build and cement specific discourses to support their political legitimacies and rule. The role of heritage during this period was undoubtedly to serve in the desired narrative construction and image-making of the two dictatorial regimes. The country officially transitioned from dictatorship to democracy in 1988– 1993, but this transition was arguably somewhere in between dictatorship and democracy in terms of its approach and outcomes, the heritage policy being one of them. The role of heritage changed to promote and symbolize the new democratic era and also to shift away from the dictatorial image, but the results can be evaluated to have been somewhat vague. This article reviews the role of heritage in the context of dictatorship and then the new democratic era. Insights from Laurajane Smith’s (2006. Uses of Heritage. London: Routledge) works on Authorized Heritage Discourse (AHD) will be used as a reference point, namely the idea of heritage as a process and practice to achieve desired goals and assist in the interests and circumstances of the time. On the whole, this study aims to review how heritage was used and managed in South Korea from 1961 to 1993 to assist in dictatorship, then democracy.