Kyŏngju Things: Assembling Place is a richly detailed study of how the interaction between individuals and “things” helps constitute agency and determine “place.” Using the city of Kyŏngju, the historical capital of the Silla kingdom, as his backdrop, Robert Oppenheim offers a refreshing analysis of Korean history, politics, and culture that looks beyond the goings on in Seoul and employs theories such as actor-network theory to expand the boundaries of Korean studies.
According to Oppenheim, “things” are more than just “physical artifacts,” they are also “knowledge objects and conceptual forms, routinized procedures and techniques, and subjectivities” (p. 11). It is through the relationship between individuals and things that place comes into formation and becomes “an orienting setting, a vicinity of thing, where some (other) things and actions become more possible” (p. 12). Oppenheim carefully lays out this theoretical framework in his introduction, and then uses it to analyze how subjectivities, agency, and movements were shaped and reshaped during the controversy surrounding the proposal to construct a high-speed railroad (KTX) through Kyŏngju in 1995. Exploring the actors, ideas, and events connected to this controversy serves as a means to produce new ways of conceptualizing political activities and movements, which have traditionally “been thought of restrictively in terms of the interaction of people with people rather than permissively in terms also of the interaction of people with things” (p. 5).
The book's strongest point lies in the way it skillfully intertwines theory with rich sources, such as highly informative interviews with academics, politicians, and residents living in Kyŏngju. Oppenheim mostly employs actor-network theory to investigate the relationship between individuals, things, and place in Kyŏngju. Specifically, under actor-network theory, a variety of resources come together to create a hinterland from which individuals draw elements to buttress or support arguments and findings. This particular aspect of actor-network theory plays a vital role in explaining the uses of tapsa and Namsan in crafting protest language, city plans, and movements during the KTX demonstrations.
In the 1990s, tapsa became a popular travel genre and set of practices in which individuals set out to personally investigate historical sites throughout Korea, including Kyŏngju; Namsan was seen as a particularly spiritual place because so many Buddhist relics were found there. Oppenheim cleverly shows how participants in the KTX protests drew from the existing discourses or “things” on tapsa and Namsan to develop arguments that shaped and pushed the debates about where to lay the tracks of the new railway system so that Kyŏngju's historical identity could be preserved while its residents could also enjoy new business opportunities.
Anyone who is interested in how subjectivities develop and how political and social movements are constructed and reconstructed through knowledge and material practices will greatly benefit from this book. For example, chapter 3 has a detailed account of the author's own tapsa trip with a group of ordinary citizens, during which he witnessed individuals taking it upon themselves to clean historical sites. Oppenheim's fellow travelers also climbed a fence surrounding a historical site, despite official notices warning tourists to keep out. Oppenheim's account of this trip gives readers the chance to critically reflect over what and how forms of knowledge and material practices permit and limit actions. Chapter 7 sheds light on how to sustain social movements through a fascinating study on how the Kyŏngju Citizen's Coalition for Economic Justice struggled to maintain a long-lasting movement following the protests.
Though Oppenheim has written a well-argued book, there are a few problems. First, the book would have benefited from a clearer analysis of how hinterlands were maintained over time. Oppenheim does a wonderful job describing and studying the hinterlands, but at times, it is unclear how they were maintained through material practices and institutions. Second, there are a few passages in the book that would have benefited from clearer writing. Finally, though the author covers the central state's view of Kyŏngju through his discussion of Park Chung Hee's plans from 1969 to 1971 to restore historical sites in Kyŏngju and the conflict between the state and Kyŏngju citizens over the KTX railway, more historical information about the relationship between the state and Kyŏngju from the early 1970s to the late 1990s would have been helpful. The reader can detect a conflict between Seoul and Kyŏngju, but more details on the conflict would help one to better understand the tension between the center and periphery.
Despite these issues, Oppenheim has written a book that will be of great benefit to scholars in any discipline because of its excellent integration of theory with empirical data. In the end, Oppenheim has accomplished what any excellent book should do in Korean studies: expand the understanding of practices, ideas and developments in Korea while providing theoretical tools to help deepen research and reconceptualize and reimagine ideas, practices, and social structures in the present.
