SMU Assistant Professor of Political Science Bae Yooil has received the Late Professor Chung-Sok Suh Best Paper Award at 9th Biennial Korean Studies Association Australasia Conference in Adelaide, Australia for the paper "The Making of Gangnam: Social Construction of the Rich and Social Inequality in South Korea".
The paper explores the formation of wealth condensation and socio-economic inequality in Gangnam, South Korea. Gangnam area in Seoul city represents rapid economic growth and widened inequality and became a symbolic urban community of the rich and power elites. It has been regarded as the richest and most politically conservative area and symbolized as the outcome of the state’s compressed growth-oriented policy. On the other hand, the term ‘Gangnam’ also meant land speculation, extravagance, obsession with education, and social inequality. Gangnam area that constitutes only 0.0001% of Korean territory has constructed a unique regional identity and provided a socio-economic and political ‘binary distinction’ between Gangnam and non-Gangnam in Korean society. By using self-other identity framework, this research argues that residents in Gangnam draw their boundaries of neighborhood along their imaginary – socio-economic status, power, and cultural sympathy – to legitimize their presence and status in the city.