Exploring the meaning and critical engagement of Cultural Studies Researcher: Focusing on Won Yong-jin’s journey of practical intervention with Cultural Action

Abstract

This paper aims to discuss the journey and meaning of Won Yong-jin's critical engagement in commemoration of his retirement as a professor and co-representative of Cultural Action. Although cultural researchers are engaged in activities to criticize reality with civic groups, Won Yong-jin has a slightly different meaning in that he was an early founding member of the civic group ‘Cultural Action’ and carried out critical activities as a co-representative until his retirement as a professor. The government's cultural policy criticism, journalism, and media literacy movements that he has been involved in for a long time later expanded into regional movements, climate crisis, blacklist movement for cultural artists, and critical discourse on digital technology. He has been seeking to form popular politics and has engaged in critical intervention focusing on political and social agendas. As a result of examining his journey into practical politics, it was found that his theoretical orientation, which considered the value of social participation as a cultural studies researcher, worked even more strongly through Cultural Action.