A research methodological debate on emancipatory catastrophism: The case of transnational marriage

Abstract

This article offers a concrete case study with the intention of demonstrating the empirical significance of the concepts of emancipatory catastrophism and metamorphosis by identifying the forces which interact when a social transformation takes place. In his public lecture at the 2014 Seoul Conference Beck explains emancipatory catastrophism through three conceptual lenses, that is, the violation of sacred norms of human existence, anthropological shock, and social catharsis. This article seeks to systematize the driving force of emancipatory catastrophism as consisting of push and pull factors and to apply this analytic scheme to the concrete case of transnational marriage which involves both the catastrophic push factor and an emancipatory pull factor for the ‘unmarriageable bachelors’ in rural Korea and the South Asian women who come to Korea to get married.