This research attempts to contest the existing research trend that explains the political power structure in Korean history through the framework of binary opposition, and shed light on the possibilities of collaborative governance implicit in the str ...
This research attempts to contest the existing research trend that explains the political power structure in Korean history through the framework of binary opposition, and shed light on the possibilities of collaborative governance implicit in the structure. Furthermore, the following two needs should be met; a. analyze and elaborate on the process through which modernization imposed by the West ended the traditional collaborative governance of the premodern era and b. find the key to resolving conflicts in contemporary Korean society by understanding modernity to be a continuation of and interwoven with tradition.
This research will focus on the transitional periods in history, which demonstrate the interlocking and continuous nature of change. Three such periods under review are: first, the dynastic transition from Goryeo to Joseon; second, 17~18th century during which power shifted from the central elites to the local elites and third, the Joseon period under the Japanese colonial rule. This study seeks to examine and shed light on the social network including family ties, marital relations, academic ties that drove various political decisions among the ruling elites during the said historical transitions. In particular, the power landscape and its shift during the transition from the late Goryeo to Joseon period and the early modern period during the Japanese colonial occupation will be canvassed. By doing so, the influence of social network on the political, social success of the ruling elites, the method through which both the central and the local elites maintained and reinforced their power as well as the power shift catalyzed by social network will be identified. The research will then explore the patterns in political choices and the power succession of the ruling elites.
The research team will tap into historical big data to examine the various permutations of power relations. The wide-ranging and multifaceted nature of big data serves as a repository of information on social networks. The existing research fails to leverage the rich reserve of big data, resorting instead on simplistic quantitative analysis of keywords. Social actors in history were part of a complex social network comprised of multidimensional not uni-dimensional, continuous rather than one-off relations. Hence, to overcome the constraints of the existing measure, extensive big data needs to be culled for relevant information through a sophisticated text-mining analysis, which then will be changed into quantitative data subject to statistical analysis and verification. Predictive modeling will ensue to find answers to critical questions of history, which will be rendered into visual representation to convey a more intuitive and chronological snapshot. Our research team seeks to undertake a new approach, convergent research, to complete the aforementioned series of tasks. The social network analysis lends itself well to historical data including the complex web of family, marital, academic and power relations of individual social actors. The team will use the information visualization method, since visualization can portray the essential facts in an efficient and lucid manner. In other words, the power structure and its transformation can be grasped more intuitively and chronologically.
The research team will make use of the digitalized historical big data including family registries, the Annals of Joseon Dynasty, anthologies, and genealogies among others. Historical big data will reveal that social actors were part of a very complex, interwoven web of relations encompassing family, marital, academic and power relations. It will also shed light on the social network among individuals, between individuals and the groups to which they belonged, and among groups in the transitional periods during the premodern to modern Korea. Historical researchers will provide the particular features and background of the historical big data pertaining to the subsequent year's research topic and elucidate the analysis outcome. The linguistic and text-mining researchers will mine historical big data, conduct analysis and store them in databases. The statistics researchers will perform predictive modeling upon statistical analysis and verification to locate answers to relevant historical inquiries. Researchers from visualization studies will conduct visualization task optimal in capturing the tested historical facts and analysis of the social network. The convergent process will unfold cyclically.