'You are entrapped in an imaginary well': the formation of subjectivity within compressed development - a feminist critique of modernity and Korean culture

One day in November 1997, South Koreans suddenly heard the news that their country needed a ® nancial bailout by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Up until the mid-1990s, South Korea’s politicians, businessmen and the people themselves, had all been in high spirits. Claiming that they had pioneered a new model of high-growth economic development, South Korea enjoyed its status as one of the f̀our dragons’ of East Asia. Many foreign students from South East Asia came to study the South Korean `economic miracle’, and scholarly discussions were held on the success of `Confucian capitalism’, which was considered to have rivalled the `Protestant capitalism’ of the West. Then came the news that South Korea was deeply in debt and needed a ® nancial bailout.