Jeongah Lee
Jeongah Lee is a Ph.D. candidate in Korean History in the Department of History at Ajou University, specializing in the political and social history of late Joseon Korea. She received her master’s degree with a study on successful examination candidates in the Suwon region during the late 18th century. Currently, she is participating in the research project supported by the Korean government, “Formulation and Proliferation of Digital History at Ajou University.
Ajou University
Session
The gwageo, civil service education system was an educational and governance model shared by multiple East-Asian societies, including Vietnam. Through this institutional connection, local elites were selected through Neo-Confucian knowledge, shaping regional society through an international system. Moreover, the yangban elites in Joseon’s different localities became entangled with this international system. Overall, these factors facilitated social and geographical movement across the Korean Peninsula.
This paper seeks to elucidate the way the career trajectories of local scholars were shaped by this educational model. Educational practices associated with the gwageo generated various types of mobility: candidates often crossed county – and at times provincial – boundaries to prepare for or sit for the examinations, and many successful examinees experienced additional movement as they advanced into official positions.
Employing a method drawing from two key sources, this study seeks to reconstruct the career paths of scholars from Danseong county. First, using the household registers (hojeok), which record occupation, residence and kinship information for local inhabitants, as well as individual mobility and family connections in 1606-1888 Danseong. And second, the exam lists (bangmok), official rosters of successful gwageo candidates, to identify the scholars and track those who advanced to official positions. This way, the scholars’ mobility can be situated within a larger tradition of East-Asian education reaching across national borders, to shed light on a topic that is much understudied yet provides an insight in both national attitudes and the reactions of the local elite.