Prelims

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Sport in Korea

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Research in the Sociology of Sport

Series Editor: Kevin Young

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Research in the Sociology of Sport Volume 24

Sport in Korea: Culture, Politics and Policy

Edited By

Eunha Koh

Inha University, Republic of Korea

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Emerald Publishing, Floor 5, Northspring, 21-23 Wellington Street, Leeds LS1 4DL

First edition 2025

Editorial matter and selection © 2025 Eunha Koh.

Individual chapters © 2025 The authors.

Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-83753-897-3 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-83753-896-6 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-83753-898-0 (Epub)

ISSN: 1476-2854 (Series)

About the Editor

Eunha Koh is a Visiting Professor of Sport Science at Inha University and the founder and CEO of Sport Insight, a sport policy consulting company based in Seoul, Korea. Her research has focused on nationalism and globalisation in Korean sport, women in sports and their representation by the media and national sport policy and politics. Throughout her career at the Korea Institute of Sport Science and at Sport Insight, she has worked with policymakers and sport organisations, publishing over 60 technical reports on sport governance, sport development and sport diplomacy. Her recent research focuses on Korean national sport policy concerning mega sport events and legacy building. She is currently a Vice President of the Korean Society for the Sociology of Sport and the Korean Association of Physical Education and Sport for Girls and Women. She is also a past Vice President of the International Sociology of Sport Association, the international body in her field.

About the Contributors

Seongsik Cho is a Professor of Sport Management at Hanyang University, Seoul. He obtained his BA and MA in Sociology from Yonsei University, Seoul, and PhD in Sports Studies at the University of Iowa, IA, under the supervision of Dr Susan Birrell. His research has focused on cultural studies of sport media and critical approaches to gender, race, nationalism and globalisation in sports. His areas of teaching include sociology of sport, sport and the media, globalisation of sport and sport management. For his teaching efforts, he has received the Best Teaching Award twice from Hanyang University. Dr Cho has also contributed to the development of the critical epistemology branch of Korean sport sociology by introducing feminist cultural studies, publishing research papers based upon critical paradigm, translating Richard Giulianotti's book, Sport a Critical Sociology, into Korean and organising several international conferences in Korea, presented by internationally recognised sport sociologists.

Yoonso Choi (PhD, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sport Sciences at the University of Seoul, Seoul, South Korea. She has studied female body representation through the media (especially on television). Also, she has been interested in interrogating sport policies related to gender equality and improving the rights of marginalised populations such as people with disabilities, the elderly and the children and women from multicultural families in Korean society. Recently, she has focused on looking at the process of cyborgfication embodied through people in wheelchairs' participating in sports.

Taehee Kang is a PhD in the Department of Physical Education at Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea. His research interests encompass sports policy and the dynamics of a sports and leisure society. He received a Master's degree focusing on the efficient utilisation of sports facilities within the public sector and was actively involved in related research endeavours at the Korea Institute of Sports Science. With his interest on sports policy and the publicness, he consistently engages in numerous research initiatives. Recently, he published a thesis on emerging trends in leisure studies and actively contributed to national research projects aimed at evaluating the efficacy of sports policies in the context of digital technology advancements.

Hanbeom Kim is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sport Science at Hankyong National University, Ansung, Korea. His research interests are mainly focused on social development through sport, and he focuses on conducting practical research that can help sport play a greater role in our society. He is trying to diagnose our society through the academic tool of sociology of sport and suggest various directions for our society based on this. As part of this, he emphasises the importance of good governance as an effective support system for sport policy, and this manuscript was written in this context. In addition, he is also involved in research projects related to Korean sports clubs, anti-doping, sports culture and student-athlete issues in South Korea, which have broadened his academic perspective on various issues in Korean sport. Recently, he has become interested in the ICT transformation of sport and strives to be a Researcher who can proactively respond to the ever-changing academic environment.

Kiwoon Kim is a Research Professor in the Institute of Sports Convergence, at Konkuk University, Chungju, Korea. His research interests include social theory, local sports, sports spaces and marginalised classes in sports. Recently, he has been interested in discrimination and alienation of people with disability in the sports space focused on their physicality. And in this regard, he is carrying out basic study for the development of a Korean sport space guidelines for disability. Also, he is participating in various national research projects related to sports policy. The most representative cases underway include research on the dual career development of student athletes and spreading culture for gender equality in sports.

Sora Kim is a Physical Education Instructor at the Korea Army Academy at Yeong-Cheon, Korea. She received a PhD from the Kyungpook National University in June 2023, specialising in Sports Sociology. The dissertation title is the sports socialisation process and challenges of elementary school students through virtual reality sports classes. Her research interests also include social networking, sports in the era of high technology and social culture.

Sun-Yong Kwon is a Professor in the Department of Physical Education, Seoul National University, Seoul. His research interests include social, cultural and historical aspects of sports and leisure, sports policy and development and sports in international relations. He has published articles in various scholarly journals including International Review for the Sociology of Sport, Sport in Society, The International Journal of the History of Sport and International Journal of the Human Movement Science. He has also co-authored book publications in Korean including Sport and Social Theories, International Sport Governance and Globalization. He is a former President of the Korean Society for the Sociology of Sport and served various professional roles in the organisation. He also served as an advisory board member and is currently the Vice President of the International Association of the Sociology of Sport.

Jungrae Lee is currently a Professor of the Department of Kinesiology at Kyungpook National University. She is currently the Senior Vice President of the Korean Society for the Sociology of Sports and is passionate about academic activities. She is interested in sports culture and has written many papers related to phenomenology. They have a perspective on problems from a critical point of view rather than a structuralist point of view and have conducted various studies on this. She is interested in the changes in sports that have emerged from the recent Fourth Industrial Revolution and is trying to approach them from various perspectives.

Wanyoung Lee (PhD, Hanyang University) is a Research Fellow in the Department of Sports Policy at the Korea Institute of Sport Science (KISS). His research interests include sports policy, nationalism, sports society and culture. Recently, he has been studying sports spaces with interest, with a particular interest in the elements of the placelessness of stadiums. The latest research related to this includes a study on ‘Professional Soccer Fields Viewed Through Ralph's Theory of Placelessness', and a study on discrimination against the disabled that occurs in public sports centres is underway using Martina Löw's social space theory. In addition, he is actively participating in national research projects related to sports policy as well, and the most representative cases underway include research on spreading culture for gender equality in sports and preparing codes of practice to prevent sexual harassment and violence in sports.

Seami Lim is an Assistant Professor in the division of Sport Science at Incheon National University in South Korea. A former tennis player, her research interests include elite sport systems, coaching policy and Korean sports clubs. She mainly focuses on social issues and policies in elite sport and is also interested in the culture of elite sport. She has worked on several projects related to sport policy, proposing policy solutions for the development of elite athletes. She is also conducting research to diagnose various phenomena in elite sports and establish a basis for a sports system that can provide a better environment for athletes. In the future, she will work on research projects involving coaches, referees and governing bodies related to elite sports and propose various policy alternatives related to the elite sports environment.

Dongkyu Na is a Senior Research Fellow in the Asian-Pacific Research Center of the Institute of Global Affairs at Kyung Hee University in Seoul, South Korea. He received his PhD in Sociocultural Studies of Human Kinetics from the University of Ottawa, Canada, in June 2021 with specialisation in the politics of sport for development, sport diplomacy and international studies. He worked as a Research Fellow at Inha University in Incheon, South Korea, and taught as an Exchange Lecturer at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Tùrkiye.

Sangwoo Nam is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sport Science at Chungnam National University. His study centres on the sociology of sport and policy, social philosophy and cultural studies. He has authored over 50 articles on gender, social theory, policy, leadership and subcultural studies in the Korean Journal of Sport Sociology. He authored a Korean textbook titled Social Issues and Debates in Sport, with the fourth edition being published in 2021. He is currently engaged in the development of textbooks focused on sport policy, sport ethics and sport coaching.

Hee Jin Seo is a Professor at the Department of Sport and Health Science, Konkuk University, Chungju, South Korea. His research interests include youth sports, sports policy, sports governance and sports media. He has recently been very interested in research on unethical practices such as corruption and sexual violence in the Korean sports world and in improving the efficiency of local sports administrative organisations. Also, he has published articles in various scholarly journals, and he recently published a study on the symbolism of the Olympics in South Korea in the International Journal of the History of Sport. He is former President of the Korean Society for the Sociology of Sport and he serves as a professional member of various sports organisations including the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism in Korea.