Saemaul Undong: Responsible leadership for just development in South Korea

HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Saemaul Undong: Responsible leadership for just development in South Korea
 
Creator Yoon, I Sil Yoon, Yoh-Chang
 
Subject Theology; Ethics; Social Justice; Rural Development Saemaul Undong; Emmanuel Levinas; ethics of the other; responsible leadership; developing countries.
Description Saemaul Undong, also called the New Village or Community Movement, was a community-based development programme promoted in the Republic of Korea during President Park’s regime in the 1970s. To reduce the urban-rural income gap in a relatively short period of time (the decade of the 1970s), it has brought unprecedented success, as seen in South Korea’s overall socioeconomic improvements and decrease of extreme poverty. Based on the movement’s contributions, individual research and public discourse have argued for the potential of applying Saemaul Undong’s strategies and activities to developing countries. Nevertheless, the movement’s weaknesses, such as the government’s ignorance of the particular needs of rural populations and the sustenance of dictatorship, imply the necessity for fundamental changes in the goals and policies of Saemaul Undong before it can be utilised for different contexts. This article explores how the limitations of Saemaul Undong should be amended.Contribution: This article utilises Emmanuel Levinas’ ‘Ethics of the Other’ as an effective framework that can be used to critique, in particular, the top-down and ambitious approach of the movement and address the significance of responsible leadership that, with hospitality, promotes a just society by being attentive to the suffering of socially vulnerable populations, concerning their dignity, uniqueness, and equality.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor
Date 2024-05-31
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — Literary Analysis
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/hts.v80i1.9008
 
Source HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies; Vol 80, No 1 (2024); 7 pages 2072-8050 0259-9422
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/9008/27084 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/9008/27085 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/9008/27086 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/9008/27087
 
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Rights Copyright (c) 2024 I Sil Yoon, Yoh-Chang Yoon https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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