지역연구 대상으로서 환동해 지역의 설정

Abstract

This paper reviews the East-Sea rim as a research region in the field of area studies based on the level of normative and epistemological perspective. When a area specialist investigates regional problems, he/she needs to answer a few of questions relates to normative and epistemological perspective, for instance, why do I need to study about a certain region? How do I conduct the research with this specific region?The concept of East-Sea rim as a research agenda has not been seriously recognized in scholarly field and seems to be used as an abstract terminology in social and natural science. However, the existential meaning of the East-Sea rim region tends to arouse researchers' interest and have become a generalized concept from the last decade. Therefore, the concept of East-Sea rim is regarded as a specialized research agenda which includes the necessity of systematized study. The purpose of East-sea rim research, as a whole, is to investigate and understand the regional mechanism which could be revealed in terms of the very existence of regional reality. I regard East-sea rim region as one of regions implying ‘complex adaptive system’ at the primary category, and presume the unit level of this region which cannot be reducible to the level of element. I also assume that the whole system of the region is not the same as a sum of independent parts. In sum, I emphasize, the East-Sea rim region needs to be recognized as a composite of multi-layered properties. In other words, it shouldn't be understood as a strictly hierarchical system organized in mechanistic manner, rather, it can be better represented as a form of ‘complex adaptive system.’ Such a system in which the behavior of the whole system cannot be predictable by focusing on the analysis of its components' behaviors, and each property of the whole system tends to emerge from the initial level into the next level - these multi-leveled analysis can be overlapped in the process of investigating.