This thesis examines the (South) Korean animation industry in between the global and the national. Since the 1990s, the Korean animation industry has tried to shift from being a subordinated ‘in-betweener’ (i.e. subcontracting for the USA and Japan) to becoming an autonomous agent (i.e. producing its own animations). What exactly initiated this change? Can it be perhaps understood as the response to the globalisation process? Or, can it be, in fact, Korea’s constantly contested nationalism under the guise of capital force of globalisation? How does this change our understanding of globalisation as process? More importantly, how do animators experience globalisation in their daily lives and work conditions?\ud
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To answer these questions, the thesis focuses on (1) how the local creative industry recognises and realises the dynamics between the global and national; (2) how the local creative producers experience negotiating local and global values in their daily lives and work. As Korea is a globally challenged nation with constantly contested national identity, the Korean animation industry is a potent site for examining ambivalent identity formation through these ‘in-between’ negotiation processes. People’s everyday experiences and ‘emotional’ struggles in-between the two major forces of nationalism and globalisation have been relatively neglected in research so far. This focus leads me to suggest the idea of ‘in-between’ not just as subcontracting but as a concept. In contrast to celebration of hybridity as ambivalence and/or resistance to both globalisation and nationalism, ‘in-betweeness’ captures the subjective experience generated from hybridity and realised through social and emotional tension in lived experiences and work. Being in-between is understood as a negotiation, transition and dis/juncture of different experiences of globalisation, along which Korean animators experience conflicts, dilemmas and confusion and hesitations about which direction to head in. It results in the creation of an ambivalent and often agonized in between identity