• Topic: "The Role of Korean Culture in Limiting the Spread of COVID-19 in South Korea"
• Date and Time: 12:30-14:00, March 11th, 2021
• Zoom link: https://snu-ac-kr.zoom.us/j/3395374845 (Zoom ID: 339 537 4845)
• Lecturer: Greg Thompson(Professor of Brigham Young University)
• Inquiry: anthrobk21plus@snu.ac.kr
  
• Lecture Outline:

South Korea's handling of the COVID-19 outbreak has been so effective it has garnered praise from such unlikely bedfellows as former President Donald Trump and the New York Times. In spite of having a much higher population density than the U.S., South Korea has sustained a per capita infection rate that is, on average, about 1/50th that of the U.S. In this article I argue that certain features of Korean culture have played a critical role in the prevalence of positive health-related behaviors such as mask-wearing and social distancing that have limited the spread of COVID-19 in South Korea. In contrast to the rather flat-footed but common explanation of "collectivism", I propose that key to the management of the spread of COVID-19 in South Korea is a particularly well-developed sense of what I will call social proprioception. Social proprioception is a social awareness/perception that exists in all cultures but which is particularly well developed in Korean culture as a form of mutuality of being (Stasch, 2011). I describe three cultural concepts that help to elaborate the peculiarly Korean version of social proprioception, namely, nunchi, bunwigi, and uri. Drawing on ethnographic data from Korea, including ethnographic data from South Korea during the COVID-19 outbreak, I argue that the practices surrounding these cultural concepts have been critical for supporting health-related behaviors that have limited the spread of COVID-19.