Will Sack will present "4-H’s Animal Spirits and the Path from Wealth to Cash in Rural South Korea (1960-1980)."
Will Sack will present "4-H’s Animal Spirits and the Path from Wealth to Cash in Rural South Korea (1960-1980)."
Abstract: Although known to most contemporary Americans as a benign rural after-school program, 4-H was a prominent tool of US overseas anti-Communism in the global Cold War. Its enrollments were at their largest in the former Japanese empire. Taking its name from the occurrence of the letter “h” four times in the organization’s ambitious motto, 4-H aimed to influence young “heads, hearts, hands, and health.” In practice, national leaders wanted 4-H to train a small group of agricultural specialists to feed growing cities, while also moving the remaining people and wealth to cities. And one precondition of moving people and capital to cities was circulation. In 1960s South Korea, however, circulation hit a snag. The countryside had little cash, and by extension, lacked the usual grease to ease exchange and migration. This paper explores how 4-H clubs took existing rural finance – complex social arrangements involving yams, pigs, rabbits and more – and scaled it up, accumulating towards a cash economy. In other words, 4-H leaned into these peoples’ fondness for animals to facilitate the spread of cash in the countryside.
The AEWG is a forum where graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, faculty, and recent PhDs interested in the environments of Asia – broadly defined to include East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), South Asia, Southeast Asia, Western Asia, Southwestern Asia (the Middle East), Central Asia – can share their work and ideas in an interdisciplinary space. Just as we are inclusive about the geography that defines ‘Asia,’ we are also open to work that deals with the environment beyond the ‘natural world.’ We invite work from urban studies, architecture, science & technology, public policy, and other fields and methodologies.
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Contact: asiaenvironmentswg@gmail.com
LOCATION:Zoom STATUS:CONFIRMED DTSTART:20220216T163000Z DTEND:20220216T173000Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR