抄録
This writing offers a brief outline of issues that deserve extensive discussion in the study of law and society in Korea under Japanese rule. It proposes to broaden the scope of the sociolegal historiography of Korea by introducing new themes brought into light by recent developments in social theory. Among those themes are identity, gender, communication, schooling, health, welfare, and many others, but this essay restricts its reference to the nature and structure of the government of Korea within the Japanese empire, the change in the modality of power and domination that occurred under Japanese rule, the state-society relationship, and conceptual/terminological problems regarding modernity and modernisation. As regards the nature and structure of government, it suggests that the Japanese rule of Korea be examined in the broad context of Japan's management of its empire as a whole. With regard to power and domination, it focuses on the extension of both the vertical and horizontal reach of power and gives an interpretation of the implications of the Japanese logic of social control. In respect of the state-society relationship, it discusses the transformation of local society and the unique way of corporatist reorganisation of society. Lastly, the essay raises questions about the adequacy of modernity and modernisation as analytical terms for describing the transformations that Korean and Japanese society have experienced. By way of these discussions, the essay calls for fresh imagination as to, and an enhanced sensibility to the complexity of, human relations in situations of domination/subordination.
