Hepatitis, Hierarchy, and Hygiene: Disciplining South Korea during the Military Regime

• In Event: Public Health, Social Construction and Disease: Infectious Diseases in East Asia

Abstract

Hepatitis B, one of the oldest viral diseases in human history, suddenly became a serious medical and social problem in South Korea during the Park Chung Hee Era (1961-1979). Korean public health authorities kept warning that the practice of sharing soju (Korean rice wine) glasses during dinner, called suljandoligi, would considerably increase the risk of infection. The problem was that this dining practice had been a means of strengthening group solidarity and setting up hierarchical relations in corporations, schools, families. During the authoritarian regime, this dining practice became a ritual for fostering their collective identity and settling down their hierarchy according to seniority or rank. Strikingly, however, this practice began to be condemned as a major cause of spreading hepatitis. I argue that the problematization of hepatitis in Park’s era showcases the contradictions of disciplining in a country that faced the challenges of rapid industrialization and the communist threat from the North. On the one hand, the state had to utilize local groups to create and mobilize disciplined individuals loyal to the national hierarchy which subsumed local hierarchies in workplaces and schools. On the other hand, the state should control contagious diseases by fostering individuals conscious of the rules of hygiene. The conflict between these two imperatives indicate the dilemma of disciplining in “militarized modernity,” as Seungsook Moon showed in her historical study utilizing Michel Foucault’s scholarship. As the military rule ended, this dilemma, along with the anti-hepatitis campaign, faded out, even though hepatitis itself never subsided.

Author

• Hyung Wook Park, Nanyang Technological University