The Social Construction of Imported Technologies: Reflections on the Social History of Technology in Modern Korea

Can imported technologies be socially constructed? Starting from this puzzling question, this essay reflects on the various methodologies with which one can narrate the stories of technology in modern Korea. A focus on technological innovations and how they have been shaped by their societal milieu forces one to leave out a large part of the technological experience, especially when the bulk of the technologies-in-use have been imported from abroad. This poses a serious problem for the history of technology in Korea, a nation that relied heavily on foreign technologies as it went through rapid economic growth in the latter twentieth century.