A Study on the USAMGIK’s Approach to the Subjectivity of Civics and Farmer after the Liberation : A Content Analysis of the Farmer's Weekly

2019년 8월

서울대학교 대학원

협동과정 글로벌교육협력 전공

김하늬(Hani KIM)

The purpose of this study is to explore how the intentions of the United States

Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK, 1945-1948) were represented

in the Farmer’s Weekly, published by the Department of Public Information, in

terms of enlightening farmers as a new subject of newly-independent South Korea.

This study conducts a qualitative content analysis of the Farmer’s Weekly to

illustrate the aspects of literacy that are found in it and the subjectivity the military

government intended to produce through such literacy. The newspaper is viewed

as a literacy education texts in that it contained contents on knowledge, attitudes,

values, and practices to cultivate a certain literacy.

The contents of the Farmer’s Weekly are categorized into three groups based

on the types of literacy they foster: basic, political, and agricultural literacy. The

basic literacy contents are subdivided into Korean literacy, the history of Korea,

and health. The political literacy contents comprise the following: the

USAMGIK’s policies, activities, and political perspectives; criticisms against the

communist Soviet Unions; and democracy and political participation. The

agricultural literacy contents include food policies, crop cultivation techniques,

animal husbandry, and farmers’ virtues.

These contents are restructured as the literacy required for the kongmin

(civics)—a political subject—and the farmer—an economic subject. The kongmin

is the subject who realizes nation-building and democracy within the US-led

liberal camp while conforming to the national authority. Literacy for the kongmin

is composed of, first, basic literacy of Hanguel, Korean history, and health and,

second, political literacy comprising appreciation of democracy, pro-US and antiSoviet perspectives, and conformity to the national authority. This was a noticeable

switch from colonial education for imperial subjects, characteristic of the approach

of the military government (MG) to the political subject of a democratic state in

the context of the Cold War. The conformity required of the kongmin, however,

had the potential to override the value for democracy, amid highly nationalistic

colonial legacies remaining in education, as it meant refraining from active

political participation.

The farmer is a rational economic subject, who is required for scientific literacy

for farming. The literate farmer also learns to become not only self-reliant to break

the cycle of individual poverty but also devoted to supporting the national

economy. This incorporates both the United States’ introduction to a rational way

of thinking and practice in farming, as well as values that were conventionally

required of farmers from the late colonial period with continuing rural poverty,

limited governmental financial support, and procrastination of land reforms after

the liberation. As such, the subjectivity the USAMGIK intended through the

medium of the Farmer’s Weekly had distinctive characteristics but was also based

upon the educational contexts intertwined with political and economic contexts

unfolding from the colonial period into liberated Korea.

This thesis provides a better understanding of literacy education for farmers. It

discusses the features of literacy that the MG required farmers to learn, in terms

of making them the new subjects of independent Korea. It also contributes to an

understanding of the features of farmers’ economic as well as political subjectivity,

while previous research was more inclined to solely investigate political

subjectivity focusing on kongmin in the political contexts of the Cold War