Korea as Research: Centering Indigenous Epistemologies for Futuring Curriculum Studies

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Wednesday 7:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Collective (Re)membering and Imagining Futures

Abstract

This study theorizes Korean epistemology to reimagine curriculum studies, aligning with the 2026 AERA theme of imagining futures from historical perspectives. With the use of historical and philosophical inquiry, Korean philosophical traditions are offered in emphasizing relationality, ethical coexistence, and imagination. The presenter examines archival texts and contemporary scholarly interviews to examine relationality, collective memory, ethical imagination, and indigenous methodologies as key themes. Central concepts for exploration include Taoist relationality, Buddhist interdependence (yeon-gi), and Confucian harmony (hwa). This study argues that Korean epistemology provides significant theoretical and methodological frameworks for ethically informed, historically grounded, and creatively imagined curriculum theorizing. It calls for curriculum scholars to integrate indigenous epistemologies into an innovative pathway for decolonizing and diversifying curriculum studies.

Author

• Seungho Moon, Loyola University Chicago