Imagine your Korea: representations of the nation at Korean cultural centers

Abstract

Globalization allows not only economic flows to become deterritorialized, but cultural ones as well. A great quantity of symbolic goods pass through our daily lives, making themselves present in advertisements, on international trips, or even in a common lunch in a Korean restaurant, for example. The spaces where the flows of globalization, both cultural, political and economic, become more intense are in cities defined as being global. The spaces where the flows of globalization, both cultural, political and economic, become more intense are in cities defined as being global. These are also responsible for receiving a large migratory flow, making daily life in a global city permeated by multiculturalism. In this way, this research intends to study one of the aspects driven by globalization, the internationalization of the national images through Korean state agencies. In order to do so, it will be studied how the network of Korean Cultural Centers, spread across several countries and how territorialisation occurs in the global city of São Paulo, in which in 2013 a Center was founded by the South Korean government. The analysis of this space and its agents will allow us to discover how the images of Korea are operated in official state institutions. The research techniques used will be: ethnographic observation, interviewing and analysis of the editorial materials produced by the official Korean agencies.