동남아시아 연구의 문제와 과제

In last decades, a quiet great number of articles and monographs dealing with the history, language, culture, society, politics, and economics of Southeast Asia have been published in Korea. This fact reflects that Koreans have become more interested in Southeast Asia mainly due to increased political and economical contacts between Korea and Southeast Asian countries. Southeast Asian studies have provided Korea with an important infrastructure for the political, economical and cultural access to Southeast Asia, thus widening the range of understanding of the region. However, the "loose" categories and methodologies of the Southeast Asian studies and their ambiguous relationship with the established subjects of the university departments have led, on the one hand, to the increase in quantity of research on Southeast Asia, produced, on the other hand, a qualitative problem of Southeast Asian studies in Korea. This paper will examine the qualitative problem of the Southeast Asian studies in Korea and to suggest some possible solutions.