Chihyung Jeon
Graduate School of Science and Technology Policy, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea
cjeon@kaist.edu
Hyungsub Choi
School of Liberal Arts, Seoul National University of Science and Technology, South Korea
hchoi@seoultech.ac.kr
Sungeun Kim
Graduate School of Science and Technology Policy, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea
kim8278@kaist.ac.kr
On 16 April 2014, the South Korean ferry MV Sewol capsized en route from Incheon to Jeju, resulting in 304 casualties. The direct cause of the incident, as it was soon discovered, was an “unreasonably sudden turn” to starboard, which caused the cargo to shift to one side and ultimately tipped the balance of the vessel. Investigators also found out that the Sewol had been carrying only one quarter of ballast water needed to maintain the ship’s stability or resilience. For the past two years, several respectable institutions—Prosecutor’s Office, Board of Audits and Inspection, and Maritime Safety Tribunal—have produced official reports on the ferry disaster, but the South Korean society is still witnessing severe conflict regarding the disaster. These efforts have failed to produce authoritative and persuasive knowledge of the disaster, with which the nation can reach consensus and maintain social resilience.
We attempt to offer one explanation of this failure by examining the characteristics of major accident investigation reports in South Korea since the 1990s, including those on the collapses of Seongsu Bridge and Sampoong Department Store. These reports can be categorized into legal, technical, or bureaucratic ones, each of which has served narrow institutional needs, but few of which could provide social and structural narratives of the disaster in question. We point out that technocratic and compartmentalized reports that do not address the structural dimensions of disasters cannot contribute to social learning processes. A structural approach in disaster reports will involve sociotechnical knowledge-making that can serve as what may be called “social ballast water”—an epistemic as well as practical basis for post-disaster learning, resilience, and reorientation.
Reviewers:
1. Shin-etsu Sugawara
2. Kohta Juraku