Why We Cheer for Viktor Ahn: Changing Characteristics of Sporting Nationalism and Citizenship in South Korea in the Era of Neoliberal Globalization

Abstract

This article examines online discussions of the South Korean–born Russian short-track speed skater Viktor Ahn, formerly known as Ahn Hyun-soo, with a particular focus on the changing characteristics of nationalism in South Korea (hereafter Korea). Despite Korea’s long history of sporting nationalism, the unexpected public support for Ahn has inspired popular and academic discussions regarding whether this nationalism is in fact weakening. I begin by exploring explanations for Ahn’s continuing popularity in Korea and how critiques of the Korean Skating Union have spread to other aspects of Korean society. Next, I examine the representation of Ahn as a role model for the desirable cosmopolitan subject with flexible citizenship who is able to transcend national borders in the pursuit of individual success. I argue, however, that Korea’s embrace of Ahn is less an indication that nationalism has been waning than it is a reclamation of Koreanness and a manifestation of a desire for national strength articulated through the conflation of traditional ethnic and developmental nationalism with neoliberal ideology. My ultimate goal, then, is to offer a nuanced understanding of the changing characteristics of sporting nationalism and citizenship in the era of neoliberal globalization.

Keywords

sports celebrity flexible citizenship nationalism South Korea Viktor Ahn

Imagine if Michael Jordan had beef [sic] with USA Basketball and decided, he’ll go play for Cuba in the Olympics. Ahn is that kind of revered figure in short track. (Zeigler, 2014)

This article explores the changing nature of sporting nationalism in South Korea (hereafter Korea) by examining online discussions of short-track speed skater Viktor Ahn, formerly known by the Korean name Ahn Hyun-soo. Ahn won three gold medals, in the 1,000 m, 1,500 m, and 5,000 m relay, and one bronze medal in the 500 m, at the 2014 Winter Olympics while competing for Russia, thereby contributing considerably to that country’s top showing in the final medal count. Prior to naturalization as a Russian citizen in 2011, Ahn had been one of Korea’s most popular athletes thanks to his three gold medals competing for Korea at the 2006 Winter Olympics and five world championship titles (Grassie, 2017). Injuries sustained in 2008, however, kept Ahn off of the Korean team at the 2010 Winter Olympics, during which time there appears to have been an ongoing conflict between Ahn and the Korean Skating Union (KSU). The dissolution of his skating club, Seongnam City Hall, owing to financial issues caused Ahn further difficulties, even as several countries, including the United States and Russia, tried to recruit him (Borden, 2014). Nevertheless, when in 2011 he renounced his Korean citizenship and was naturalized as a Russian citizen, the move came as a great shock to Koreans.

Ahn’s status as a world-class athlete was reaffirmed by his aforementioned success at the 2014 Winter Olympics, which stood in stark contrast with the failure of the Korean men’s national short-track team to win a single medal at the games. Considerable public uproar ensued, in response to which the then-president of Korea, Park Geun-hye, demanded a government investigation into Ahn’s departure (Choe, 2014). The issue was especially sensitive because short-track speed skating has been the country’s most popular Olympic sport and the one in which it has been most successful, accounting for 21 of Korea’s 26 gold medals in the years leading up to 2014. Nurtured by the government’s elite sports policy (J.-W. Park & Lim, 2015), short-track speed skating has come to represent Korean national pride, even its international competence, its dominance therein often being described with ethnic reference to discipline, diligence, and intensive repetitive training (J. C. Kang, 2018), notions that resonate with the country’s ethos of rapid economic development. Thus, for example, when U.S. skater Apolo Ohno was awarded the gold in the 1,500 m short-track race in the 2002 Olympics after the leading skater, Korean Kim Dong-Sung, was disqualified, anti-American sentiments were voiced across Korea in the form of online protests and boycotts (Kirk, 2002). In this context, Ahn’s gold medal at the 2006 Olympics was seen as a kind of national revenge and his extraordinary performance as a manifestation of Korea’s accomplishments.

Given the long-standing nationalist fervor for sports in general and short-track speed skating in particular in Korea, it might have been expected that Ahn’s departure would cast him as a traitor.¹ Many Koreans, however, supported his decision and cheered for him even when he competed for Russia; thus, 69% of respondents to one survey expressed sympathy for his change of citizenship, and a similar percentage acknowledged taking pleasure in his victories (J. Park, 2014). Even several years after his naturalization as a Russian, Ahn has remained a sports celebrity in Korea, appearing on television programs (including in 2017, the popular reality show The Return of Superman and the talk show Taxi) to discuss his life in his adoptive country. Even Ahn’s inability to participate in the 2018 Olympics, from which Russian athletes were banned in connection with a doping scandal, drew a great deal of media attention in Korea (Yoo, 2017).

Ahn’s change of citizenship can be also situated within broader patterns of migration by athletes. According to the Pew Research Center, some 120 athletes, or 4% of the nearly 3,000 who gathered for the 2014 Olympics, competed for countries other than those in which they were born (Connor, 2014), and the number increased to an estimated 178, or 6% of the total, at the 2018 Olympics (Dam, 2018). The international media have accordingly spoken of Ahn’s case as an example of Olympians’ “flexible citizenship” (Spiro & Peters, 2014) and as having been “spurred an era of free agency” (Sheinin, 2014). At the same time, Ahn’s case is unique in that he may be “the first athlete, or at least the highest-profile one, to detach himself from his own country, announce his availability and solicit offers until he found one that best suited him” (Sheinin, 2014). In other cases, athletes who migrate lack the skill to qualify for their national teams or are drawn to richer countries for economic reasons. Ahn’s iconic status in short-track skating and Korean sports more broadly has meant that his naturalization—often referred to by Koreans the “Ahn phenomenon”—marks an important moment for discussions of Korean nationalism (S.-Y. Kim, 2014). Currently, societal changes due to migration are becoming significant for the country; thus, for example, as of 2012, approximately 14% of Koreans were living outside the peninsula. The government has accordingly looked to sporting events to maintain a relationship with expatriates and even to entice them to return to Korea (Chang, Sam, & Jackson, 2017).

Journalists and scholars have interpreted the fact that so many Koreans have been cheering for a Korean-born athlete competing for Russia as evidence for a waning in Korean nationalism. Thus, for instance, in an article titled “Challenging nationalism at the Olympics,” S. Kim and K. Kim (2014) attributed the Ahn phenomenon to a kind of reaction against nationalism or weakening of traditional support for fellow Koreans at the Olympics. Scholars have likewise described the Ahn phenomenon as a paradigm shift in Korean sporting nationalism (H. Kim, 2014) that represents “the emergence of a weak patriotism and nationalism” (J.-W. Park & Lim, 2014, p. 171) and privileges the success of individuals over that of nations or groups (S.-Y. Kim, 2014).

The aim here, then, is to engage with academic discussions of the changing characteristics of nationalism and citizenship through an investigation of Ahn’s case. Existing scholarship has drawn attention to the important and indeed unique role of sports in (re)defining national identity amid the interplay of nationalism, globalization, and/or nationalism (Bairner, 2001, 2015; Joo, 2012; Rowe, 2012). Sports celebrities play a particularly crucial role in epitomizing and symbolizing national characteristics as they evolve (J.-H. Ahn, 2014; Cho, 2011; Giardina, 2001; N. Lee, Jackson, & Lee, 2007; Pu, Newman, & Giardina, 2017; Yang, 2012). One example is Gus Hiddink, a Dutch-born coach who became the first foreigner awarded honorary Korean citizenship for his role in leading the nation’s soccer team to the quarterfinals in the 2002 World Cup, part of which was held in Korea (N. Lee et al., 2007). Thus, this examination of public discourse surrounding Ahn as a sports celebrity stands to expand the scope of the current scholarly account of the intersection of globalized sports, celebrities, and nationalism.

I begin by examining theoretical discussions of nationalism, particularly in relation to neoliberal globalization and the changing terrains of sporting nationalism within a global context. Next, I explore how Ahn, as a sports celebrity, is represented as a model desirable cosmopolitan subject, one whose flexible citizenship transcends national boundaries in the pursuit of individual success. From this perspective, support for Ahn both reflects and results from neoliberal sensibilities of meritocracy and self-reliance prevalent among Koreans. At the same time, however, I argue for caution regarding the perception that nationalism is waning in Korea; for despite their apparent contradictions, globalization and nationalism are not entirely competing and conflicting impulses. This study shows that Koreanness continues to be asserted forcefully in discussions of Ahn as traditional ethnic and developmental nationalism is infused with neoliberal ideologies. By approaching nationalism in this way, I seek to challenge popular conceptions of, and explanations for, the assumed opposition between nationalism and the neoliberal cosmopolitan values associated with globalization.

Nationalism in a Global Era

This article builds on and is informed by the vigorous scholarly discussion of nation and nationalism. This discussion has demonstrated that nation and a national culture, rather than being static notions, are always temporal, liminal, and in transition; and nationalist discourses are construed as a constantly changing and (re)constructed form of narrative (Anderson, 2006; Bhabha, 1990). In Korea, as everywhere, nationalism intertwines with specific political and cultural contexts; in this case, a colonial history, the Korean War and partition, rapid modernization and development under the military dictatorships, and most recently, democratization and globalization (K. J. Kim, 2007; J. W. Lee, 2015; Shin, 2006). Thus, I.-J. Yoon (2007) has charted the development of Korea’s various nationalist discourses from nationalist resistance to Japanese colonization and developmental nationalism under authoritarian regimes to the “open nationalism” of democratization and a kind of cosmopolitan globalization.

Here, I highlight two key aspects of Korean nationalism, ethnic and developmental, and discuss their conflation with neoliberal globalization in discussions of Ahn. To begin with, Korean nationalism is founded on notions of ethnic homogeneity, of a single bloodline and shared ancestry, that create a strong sense of unity, solidarity, and national pride (Shin, 2006). Ethnic nationalism has effectively maintained internal solidarity in the face of external threats, such as colonialism. Thus, for example, nationalist discourse emphasized the purity and distinctiveness of the Korean nation in response to Japan’s colonial rule and promotion of pan-Asianism. Scholars have likewise noted that ethnic nationalism remains an important organizing principle of Korean society, with even globalization being appropriated in nationalist agendas (Joo, 2012; Shin, 2006). Since the 1990s, while the government has promoted multicultural policies and migration from various Asian countries has increased, a strong belief in ethnic purity and homogeneity has fueled hate speech and social discrimination against non-Koreans.

Scholars also stress the strong influence of developmentalism on Korean nationalism (K. J. Kim, 2007; I.-J. Yoon, 2007). Having numbered among the world’s poorest countries after the Korean Armistice Agreement in 1953, Korea has, as indicated earlier, undergone rapid industrialization and economic growth—which began under the leadership of the military dictator Park Chung-Hee in 1963—so that it today ranks among the world’s developed countries. Other Asian states have similarly deployed nationalism as a powerful tool for mobilizing citizens and garnering support for economic development. In the words of S. Lee (2012), “development was a goal, motivation, and driving force of nationalism” (p. 5). Such developmentalism, then, has played a significant role in the construction of Korean identities and worldviews, even as the notion of an “advanced country” was introduced and formed “an urgent national goal and central reference point” (J. Kim, 2011, p. 317). In the current era of globalization, developmentalism is being transformed as nations compete in the international arena (S.-W. Yoon, 2009). Developmental nationalism is also intertwined with ethnic nationalism, in that the myth of homogeneity has served as a uniting force in Korea’s rapid modernization, which is interpreted as evidence of the power of Koreanness (Joo, 2012).

Of particular interest here are the ways in which Ahn’s case renarrates the ethnic and developmental characteristics of nationalism in the era of neoliberal globalization. As mentioned, much of the academic discussion has concerned whether Korean nationalism is waning in the face of neoliberal globalization. Campbell (2015), for example, has argued that traditional ethnic nationalism has been declining in Korea, especially among young people, in favor of new notions that she termed “globalized cultural characteristics” and that are based on the concepts of modernity and cosmopolitanism (p. 483). Globalization and nationalism are not, however, incompatible (Shin, 2006; Yang, 2012), and Korean nationalism has, as observed, persisted throughout the country’s process of globalization.

In addition, neoliberalism and nationalism have been traditionally conceptualized as antithetical notions because the former, at least in theory, promotes free-market competition and limited state intervention (Harmes, 2012). Numerous scholars, however, have argued for a dynamic interplay between neoliberalism and nationalism in practice (e.g., Yang, 2012). Ong (2006), for example, has argued that Asian states have adopted “neoliberalism as exception” as a way of optimizing their governing technologies in specific local contexts. Thus, as has been seen, neoliberalism has since the 1990s been appropriated and promoted by the Korean government.

From this perspective, neoliberalism is not simply a market ideology but rather “the extension of competitive markets into all areas of life, including the economy, politics, and society” (Springer, Birch, & MacLeavy, 2016, p. 2). It thus needs to be understood as a form of governmentality (Ong, 2006) by “link[ing] neoliberalism’s celebration of individuality to the self-disciplining internalization of identifiably neoliberal logics and rationalities” (O’Neill & Weller, 2016, p. 89). In the words of Collins (2009), “neoliberalism is said to engender new governmentalities, new citizens and new selves, but always vis-à-vis a previously existing national identity” (p. 66). Nationalism is accordingly approached here in terms other than as the antithesis of neoliberal globalization, a move that allows for a nuanced account of, first, the role of neoliberal globalization in reshaping individuals’ understanding of national identity and national belonging, and, second, the ways in which nationalist discourse is continually transformed and renarrated. International sporting events provide a particularly suitable context for exploring the evolving characteristics of nationalism in Korea because they serve as key arenas for the discursive construction of national identity and belonging.

Sporting Nationalism and Sports Celebrities

Athletic competitions have long served as powerful tools for constructing collective identities, and this is especially true of international events such as the Olympics and World Cup (Bairner, 2001). The phenomenon is well-documented in Korea (J. W. Lee, 2015), where in modern times, the government has promoted the development of various sports as part of nationalist modernization policies. For the authoritarian military governments of the 1960s–1980s, the promotion of sports was intended to enhance national solidarity and to demonstrate the country’s rising national status and international economic might. Scholars have also associated with the rapid success of Korean athletes in international competitions with a government-led elite sports policy (J.-W. Park & Lim, 2015). In this context, the Olympics have generally been regarded in Korea as a competition for national prestige rather than for individual glory, with the members of the national team serving as “warriors of the nation” (Cho, 2011). Indeed, political concerns seem to have outweighed entertainment value in the development of Korean sports (Joo, 2012).

However, the wave of globalization that began in the late 1990s has had a significant impact on the perception of sports. National identity remains a significant factor, but global markets have begun blurring national boundaries, while conversely sports have influenced both national and global sensibilities (Rowe, 2012). Careful attention is therefore necessary to the interplay between global and national forces. Cho (2011), for instance, has described the coevolution of the global sports industry and transnational business with national identity and sentiment as part of a strategy to maximize profits.

Sports celebrities, for their part, can now have a global presence, transcending national boundaries while (re)signifiying nationalism (Cho, 2011; Giardina, 2001; Pu et al., 2017; Yang, 2012). J.-H. Ahn (2014), for example, in her study of the media coverage of American football player Hines Ward in Korea, emphasized how this athlete functioned as a cultural signifier, specifically as a locus for cultural struggles representing the birth pangs of a new Korean national identity in a global era. Other studies have focused on the ways in which sports celebrities become symbolic figures epitomizing a hegemonic neoliberalism. Thus, for example, Pu, Neman, and Giardina (2017) have described Chinese tennis player Li Na as a representative of a new form of Chinese citizenship characterized by such neoliberal values as individualism and entrepreneurship. Cho (2008) similarly argued that the representation of Korean athletes who had gained success in the United States promoted the image of a successful self-governing individual who at the same time fulfills his or her obligations to the nation-state. Such studies have provided insights into the role that sports celebrities play in relation to nationalism and the formation of a new kind of citizenship founded on neoliberal globalization.

Against the backdrop of these discussions, I analyze Viktor Ahn as symbolic of the changing nature of Korean nationalism. Several studies in recent years have examined the sociocultural and ideological implications of Ahn’s naturalization (S.-Y. Kim, 2014; Y. E. Kim, Moon, & Kim, 2014; J.-W. Park & Lim, 2014; Yi, 2015), but they have mainly done so from the perspective of media coverage. What has been missing from this scholarship are the responses and discussions by the audience for sporting events and the antics of sports celebrities; for the media coverage does not necessarily represent popular discourse accurately. Thus, for example, an article titled “The misunderstanding and truth about Ahn’s naturalization” (S. Kim, 2014) argued that Ahn, rather than being an innocent victim of the KSU, actually benefited from the organization’s factionalism and that his move to Russia was motivated mainly by career concerns. Comments on the article, however—which received more than 2,000 likes—were highly critical of it, some even suspecting that the journalist had been bribed to advocate for the KSU. This article thus demonstrates the capacity of open, interactive, and collective new media to provide a forum that challenges and reconstructs, rather than simply reproduces, the frame and tone of traditional mass media coverage.

An examination of online discourse is especially important for understanding the social construction of sports celebrity, which is of course highly influenced by the public’s interest. The media discourse of celebrity is, then, two-sided, being constructed both by mass media and by ordinary people, especially on the Internet (Cho, 2011). Moreover, nationalism is not just a top-down, state-sponsored ideology but rather exists also in the form of hegemonic popular discourse and public sentiment (Wang, Goh, & Vickers, 2017). Cho (2009) accordingly referred to a “sporting nationalism” that fosters “an emotional, expressive attachment to the nation and often elicits voluntary patriotism” (p. 349) rather than being a mere government-sponsored ideology. The present research stands to make a similar contribution to the literature by relating popular comments about Viktor Ahn to Korean nationalism.

Method

For this study, I analyzed the web portal Daum News (http://media.daum.net/) in order to access online discussions of Ahn by Koreans. In 1999, Daum became the first Korean web portal, and in 2003, it launched the Daum Media service, which sources stories from various newspapers. I chose Daum for this study for several reasons. First, the Internet is enormously important as a source of news in Korea, with some 77% of consumers accessing news online (H. Kim & Rhee, 2011). Web portals play a particularly significant role in the consumption of online news—indeed more significant than that of traditional news media sites. Thus, 97.4% of those who visit web portals such as Daum also access the articles that the portals display on their front pages (J.-M. Ahn & Park, 2007).

Daum is also a useful site for examining popular comments recommended by other users, for such unmoderated comments, posted beneath the articles, have been shown to influence public opinion. The open and democratic nature of new media technologies allows for discussion of issues passed over by the mainstream media and provides alternative outlets for shaping public opinion (Lievrouw, 2011). In this regard, Daum has a particularly strong record of helping to create a discursive public sphere. The online forum Daum Agora, for instance, has provided hubs for online discussions promoting large candlelight demonstrations against the importation of U.S. beef in 2008 (S. Lee, 2014). Of course, the perception and therefore influence of online news articles can be affected by readers’ comments (J. Kang & Kim, 2012). In this respect, the comments play a key rather than a subsidiary role in the dissemination of news on the Internet (J.-M. Ahn & Park, 2007).

For these reasons, Daum represents a useful context for assessing the changing perceptions and discourse surrounding nationalism in Korea. I accessed Daum’s internal news archives (http://media.daum.net/netizen/bestreply/) to examine the most commented articles of the day—those that had received between 300 and 7,000 comments. I read through all of the archives of these articles for the period from February 7 to March 1, which included the 2014 Winter Olympics (held February 7–23), searching a total of 1,150 to determine that nearly 10% (109 articles) were related to Ahn. This relatively high percentage indicates that Ahn’s case was a heated issue at that time. Thus, on February 15, the date of his bronze and first gold medals, 16 of the top 50 articles were about Ahn, as were 11 of 50 on February 22, the date of his second and third gold medals.

For each news article, I also examined the popular comments, which I sorted by the number of recommendations. Daum users can express their opinions by clicking either a recommendation (like) button or an opposition (dislike) button and can post their own replies to each others’ comments. I accordingly analyzed the top 30 most recommended comments from each article referring to Ahn using critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 1995). This form of analysis integrates a Foucauldian approach to discourse into a systemic textual analysis, identifying themes inductively and showing how discourse is shaped by power relations and ideologies (Mills, 2004). In this study, therefore, discourse analysis revealed how the comments related to broader social discourses in Korea, such as citizenship, national belonging, and nationalism.

All of the news articles and comments were originally written in Korean, so I translated them into English for this study. The translated comments have in addition been reviewed by a proofreader who is also fluent in both English and Korean. I do not, however, disclose such specific information as usernames so as to avoid subjecting the writers to any potential harm. Further, since the popularity of comments is measured in terms of users’ recommendations, any given comment can be read as a representative opinion rather than an individual one.

“Korea Has No Right to Have Such a Genius” or Shame on an Incompetent Country

I begin the analysis of public discourse regarding Ahn’s naturalization by exploring why Ahn garnered public support rather than criticism when he competed for Russia at the 2014 Winter Olympics. Following his first gold medal win, in the 1,000 m event on February 15, public anger and criticism on Daum were aimed, not at Ahn, but at the KSU, which was said to be riven by factional strife tracing back to ties between its leadership and that of Korea National Sports University and other institutions. According to statements made to the media by Ahn’s father—who had been highly critical of the KSU—Ahn had been discriminated against, bullied, and even beaten in the context of factional divisions within the KSU (Rutherford & Kim, 2014). The elder Ahn alleged that, at the 2016 World Short Track Speed Skating Championships, when his son was forced to train with female athletes from the university because the Korean male short-track team and its leadership were divided along school lines, male athletes from other institutions went so far as to interrupt his skating (J.-W. Park & Lim, 2014). In fact, the KSU’s website crashed after Ahn’s initial win under a barrage of angry messages blaming its officials for losing Ahn to Russia (Chi, 2014). As part of this discourse, users began to mock the KSU with the pun bingsin yeonmang (retarded union), using offensive ableist speech to play on the similarity between the Korean word for skating (bingsang) and disabled (bingsin). The comments included the following:

The retarded union should blame itself.

We should investigate and shake up the corrupt KSU this time. If they do not purge all of the factionalism within the KSU, there will be another Ahn in the future.

The real traitor is not Ahn but the KSU. I think that the idiots at the KSU should have been exiled from the country.

Cheer up, Ahn! I hope that he will sweep all of the gold medals in the remaining events, thereby obtaining his revenge on the KSU.

Such sympathetic comments reflected mainstream media coverage of Ahn in ascribing his naturalization to problems within the KSU (J.-W. Park & Lim, 2014). Thus, there is the widespread belief that factionalism within the KSU kept Ahn off of Korea’s 2010 Olympic team, though the organization attributed his failure to qualify to his 2008 knee injury. The KSU was also accused of failing to support Ahn during his recovery from the injury or attempts to rejoin the team (Borden, 2014), though the KSU pointed to other short-track medalists who had retired after injuries and affirmed that it would be unfair to give Ahn preferential treatment (S. Kim, 2014). According to this argument, Ahn had no choice but to leave his birth country. Then-President Park joined in the criticism:

The player Ahn has the best skills, but he cannot seek his dream as a South Korean, but he is playing for another country. We must ask ourselves if his problem was not due to the unreasonableness of our sports community. (Park, quoted in Choe, 2014)

Interestingly, this criticism was directed not only against sports institutions like the KSU but extended to Korean society, which was described as fraught with irrationality and corruption, as the following popular comments show:

Factionalism based on regionalism and school associations has become ingrained in almost all areas of our society. We should put an end to this factionalism.

Korea has no right to have such a genius. Even as famous a soccer player as Lionel Messi, were he born in Korea, would not have been selected as a member of the national team under this absurd system.

Why don’t we see Ahn as a traitor in the name of nationalism? It is because we are aware of social problems and corruption in Korea. He is the one who succeeded in overcoming these barriers. I am so proud of him.

Many Daum users, then, sympathized with Ahn on the grounds that he had no choice but to give up Korean citizenship and lamented his alleged suffering at the hands of an incompetent union and country. As one popular comment put it, “Ahn, don’t feel sorry for us [the Korean people]. Rather, we are sorry not to have protected you as a son of Korea. What a shame for our country.” From this perspective, then, rather than being a traitor, Ahn was the victim of his native country’s corrupt system. This sympathy toward him can be also understood in the context of uncertainty, despair, fear, and hopelessness in Korean society at large, particularly in the wake of the 1997 financial crisis and neoliberal flexibilization of labor markets (K.-S. Chang, 1998; Joung, 2010). More recently, Korean society has been referred to as “Hell Joseon,”² meaning premodern, uncivilized, corrupt, dysfunctional, incompetent, founded on the exploitation of the young, and, especially, riven by factionalism (W. Lee, 2016). According to this discourse, survival depends on either being born into the upper class or escaping Korean society altogether, and studies have shown that this kind of thinking plays a role in decisions regarding Korean migration (Chang, Jackson, & Sam, 2017).

As part of this wholesale condemnation of Korean society, commenters began to contrast the country unfavorably with others, in particular Russia. Thus, when Ahn appeared as a Facebook cover picture for Russian President Vladimir Putin, one comment described Korea as a hujinguk (underdeveloped country) rather than a sunjinguk (developed country) and another asserting that “Russia is certainly a developed country” received more than 1,400 recommendations. The Korean public is increasingly recognizing Russia as an important cooperation partner in economic and political terms, while Korea’s relationships with China and Japan have worsened over such political and historical issues as deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile defense system and Japanese sexual enslavement of Korean women during the Second World War (Y. Kang, 2016). Further, the selection of Sochi over Pyeongchang as the host city of the 2014 Olympics is widely considered evidence of Russian President Putin’s international influence.³ This geopolitical context has also informed Koreans’ positive perceptions of Russia’s recruitment of Ahn, as the following comments indicate.

Not return to Korea. Living as a citizen of a powerful nation like Russia will be much better than living as a citizen of a small and weak country such as Korea.

The officials of the KSU have the mentality of an underdeveloped country. That is why Korea cannot be called a developed country.

A developed country is defined not only by its economic capacity but also by its management of human resources.

These comments also exemplify the vigorous developmentalist ethos that, as discussed earlier, has exerted a powerful influence on the construction of Korean national identities and worldviews. Developmentalism as originally conceived assumed an economic hierarchy among countries, thus equating economic performance with national identity (S. Lee, 2012). Beginning in the late 1980s, however, developmentalist-based discourse in Korea came to transcend economics to find an application in nearly every field, from education to public health (J. Kim, 2011). Commenters’ discussions of Ahn indicate the particularly strong association of this “advanced country discourse” with the sporting arena. In this case, Russia’s status as a developed country is manifested in part in its ability to recruit and reward a world-class athlete, in contrast with a Korea that is uncompetitive in the global arena, having been kept “weak and small” by a corrupt and underdeveloped system.

The Sports Celebrity as a Cosmopolitan and the Rhetoric of Meritocracy

Ahn's naturalization provides an opportunity to rethink the relationship between the nation-state and the individual, at least insofar as the phenomenon of celebrity athletes represents a challenge to attempts to contain sports within nationalistic contexts. In the following discussion, I describe Ahn as the epitome of the neoliberal cosmopolitan subject who, as alluded to above, has the capacity to transcend national boundaries thanks to extraordinary talent.

To begin with, a number of the popular comments show that many individual Koreans began to question the national purpose in the aftermath of Ahn’s success as a Russian citizen:

Be patriotic? Why must I feel proud of my country even after this nation abandoned me?

I believe that the meaning of nationalism is changing for us. Individual dreams and passions are not secondary to the national interest.

For Ahn, the homeland is where he will be protected and cared for.

The popularity of these comments suggests a rejection of chauvinist attitudes on the part of Koreans about their country, even as the conception of nationality and citizenship evolves. As noted above, dissatisfaction and frustration within Korean society have fostered new ways of measuring individual success. According to a recent survey, most Koreans (58%) would not want to be born again in Korea, most (56%) would also be willing to give up Korean citizenship if they found success elsewhere (Ock, 2017).

With a greater range of ideologies and choices becoming available, the notion that individuals can choose the kind of life that they want has taken root. The phenomenon has been aptly described as “cosmopolitan striving” (S. J. Park & Abelmann, 2004), meaning “the desire to become citizens of the world capable of living at home in the world” (p. 646). Through their reactions to Ahn, many Daum users expressed their cosmopolitan desire, valuing citizenship in proportion to its capacity to promote an individual’s success and achievement. That Ahn serves as a model cosmopolitan subject is indicated by such comments as the following:

For me, Korea is a country not worth living in. I would change my citizenship as he did were I able to do it.

Like him, many ordinary people will also want to move to foreign countries.

Ong (1999), drawing on Foucault’s notion of governmentality, has argued that, in the era of globalization, governments and individuals are developing a flexible notion of citizenship founded on “the cultural logics of capitalist accumulation, travel, and displacement that induce subjects to respond fluidly and opportunistically to changing political-economic conditions” (p. 6). Under these circumstances, competent individuals, representing valuable human capital in a global market, can cross traditional national boundaries, just like sports celebrities who, with their flexible citizenship, epitomize the cosmopolitan subject (Cho, 2011; Giardina, 2001). While a more democratic and critical cosmopolitanism is possible (Delanty, 2006), scholars have problematized the (neo)liberal manifestation of it for its abstract and universalistic understanding of humanity, diversity, and democracy and its classist and Western-centric implications (Gowan, 2001). Thus “a kind of competitive or strategic cosmopolitanism” serves to create competitive “global citizens” who can survive in the broader contexts of flexible neoliberal regimes (O’Neill & Mitchell, 2016). In specific relation to discussions of Ahn, not everyone can cross borders with such ease—which is to say that the social foundations of cosmopolitanism, such as class and citizenship privilege, must not be overlooked (Calhoun, 2008). It is indeed counterintuitive that so many people consider as role models those few who enjoy the rarified status of world-class athletes, even when the latter engage in such an unusual activity as immigration to a new country.

The power of such individuals over the imaginations of average people is bound up with the rhetoric of meritocracy in the context of cosmopolitan desire, as again can be seen in Daum users’ discussions:

We are living in a country in which the basic principle of meritocracy is disregarded.

In responding to Ahn’s case, I hope that Korea will become a meritocratic society based on a system of fair competition.

Meritocracy, according to the definition of Littler (2013), “refers to the idea that whatever our social position at birth, society ought to facilitate the means for ‘talent’ to ‘rise to the top’” (p. 52). Although it has a long history, Littler has argued that this ideology of meritocracy has emerged as a key concept in contemporary neoliberal discourse in particular, promoting an essentialized notion of talent and competitive individualism relating to social mobility. Ahn’s case shows how the rhetoric of meritocracy is articulated in its most extreme form in the sports arena because athletic skill and performative excellence are considered fundamentally as possessions and achievements of individuals. The immediacy and unpredictability of sporting competitions further add to the authenticity of the merit-based explanation for the success of sports celebrities (Andrews & Jackson, 2001).

At the 2014 Olympics, Korea took home only three gold medals, making it 13th among competing countries, and no Korean man won a medal on the short track. Had Korea been considerably more successful, it is possible that Ahn would have been dismissed and forgotten by Korean mass media and sports history (H. Kim, 2014). This conclusion draws support from the cases of other Korean-born athletes who have played for and become citizens of other countries. In many of these cases, the athletes left Korea for the sole purpose of furthering their sporting careers, especially those competing in sports that Korea has dominated, such as short-track skating and also archery. These latter athletes did not receive the popular and media attention that Ahn did, however, in part because they did not go on to win medals and defeat Korean competitors. Ahn’s extraordinary achievement, from this perspective, was to defeat his fellow countrymen. The following comments are illustrative of Daum users’ support of Ahn on the basis of his outstanding performance on the ice:

If you did not fight well in Russia, I would have cursed you. But you did an excellent job! You are an outstanding Korean guy!

Ahn’s ability is an undeniable fact. You cannot brand him a traitor.

Ahn’s level of performance is far beyond that of other athletes. He has risen to the top through his own ability alone. He is a world-class athlete.

Again, this obsession with individual success reflects broader social discourse and practice. Thus, for example, the Korean government has selectively naturalized foreign nationals based on a neoliberal understanding of their potential contributions to Korean society (S. Lee, 2012). Likewise, in the case of football player Hines Ward, born of a Korean mother and African American father, success in the United States played a significant role in the acceptance of his Korean identity despite the country’s long history of racism (J.-H. Ahn, 2014).

In addition, transnational sports celebrities, being regarded as representative examples of the new flexible citizenship (Giardina, 2001), promote neoliberal individualism, one aspect of which is to cultivate self-management and self-reliance (Ong, 1999). So it is that the success of celebrity athletes is often imagined by the Korean public to be the product of “their training through private capital and individual initiatives” (Joo, 2012, p. 139) rather than of the state-sponsored elite sports system. Cho’s (2008) examination of the success of Korean athletes in the United States has similarly shown that they promote the image of “a self-governing individual” (p. 89) who is responsible for his or her own well-being based, again reflecting the neoliberal ideal. This discourse is apparent in such comments on Ahn’s case as the following:

Only people with their [celebrity athletes’] abilities can change their nationalities.

Before begging for a country, you should first be a competent individual.

Reclaiming Koreanness in the Era of Neoliberal Globalization

The simple fact that Daum users’ discussions imagine Ahn to be a successful cosmopolitan subject does not necessarily mean that nationalism in Korea is waning or that Koreans are losing their sense of belonging to their nation. The issue here is the reclamation of a sense of Ahn’s Koreanness based on the notion of bloodline, which relates in turn to how the population’s desire for a strong and developed nation is expressed. I accordingly pay particular attention to the ways in which neoliberal ideologies are rearticulated in terms of traditional ethnicity and developmentalism rather than being opposed to them. The following comments are particularly illustrative of Daum users’ ongoing investment in blood ties as a means to reclaim Ahn’s Koreanness:

I cheer for Ahn. He has a Korean blood despite his Russian citizenship.

Even though you sang the Russian national anthem with the Russian flag, you have the same blood as us. We are so proud of you!

Citizenship is not important if you remember that you are Korean.

In this way, many Daum users reconnected with Ahn and reaffirmed his identity as Korean by virtue of his Korean heritage. This discourse is in keeping with a Korean ethnic nationalism built, not on citizenship, but on the notion of ethnic homogeneity through a single bloodline. Blood has long been a powerful metaphor for imagining and constituting Koreanness (J.-H. Ahn, 2014), as is indicated by Ahn’s choice of Viktor as his Russian name, which is both connected to various Latinate words meaning “victory” but also honors Viktor Tsoi, a popular Russian entertainer whose father was Korean (Manfred, 2014). Thus, commenters similarly related Ahn’s ability and achievements to the supposed superiority of Koreanness:

No matter where you are, you are a child of Korea. You are a real patriot, and your role resembles that of a sports ambassador from Korea.

Korea donated four medals to Russia thanks to Ahn.

As a Korean, Ahn will contribute to the development of Russian skating. The Russian people will be thankful for Korea.

Congratulations, Ahn! Winning medals in Russia is also a way to increase Korea’s standing. The Russian people will notice the ability and indeed superiority of the Korean people.

Echoing this point, Joo (2012) noted that “Rather than a waning of nationalism, athletes who compete abroad operate as mediated symbols of the global Korean nation” (p. 52). As mentioned, Ahn’s Koreanness is also reaffirmed in public discourse regarding the “globalization of Korean sports” or “export of Korean sports elite.” Kim Seong-jo, the president of Korea National Sport University, has likewise pointed to Ahn as an example of a successful alumnus who raised Korea’s status globally through his athletic prowess, affirming that he “has contributed to boosting Korea’s image in Russia by winning medals in short-track speed skating” (Chung, 2016). This attitude combines developmental nationalism with neoliberal values in what scholars have called “developmental neoliberalism” (S.-W. Yoon, 2009). Indeed, developmental nationalist ideas have been used to promote and justify globalization and the implementation of neoliberal policies since the late 1990s (J. Kim, 2011), and neoliberalism has been promoted as a means to achieve such goals in Korea as economic growth and catching up with more developed countries (S.-W. Yoon, 2009).

The paradox of Ahn, then, is that he has become a successful globalized individual subject, while his achievement in international competitions has been praised as evidence of the excellence of Koreanness. Thus, he has maintained a strong sense of Korean identity even after leaving the country. Simply put, Ahn rearticulates Koreanness rather than deconstructing it.

Conclusion

This study has explored the changing nature of sporting nationalism in contemporary Korea from the perspective of online comments posted during the 2014 Winter Olympics about skater Viktor Ahn’s change of citizenship. First, I demonstrated that many Koreans, rather than blaming Ahn, cheered him on, viewing him as a victim of a corrupt and irrational system. Second, the comments revealed a tendency to call into question and sought to redefine the relationship between the nation and the individual. At the same time, throughout the discussion of Ahn’s citizenship, he has in his capacity as a sports celebrity been represented as the epitome of the successful cosmopolitan subject and the beneficiary of a purportedly meritocratic system. The Ahn phenomenon can accordingly be seen as the product of the neoliberal sensibilities of meritocracy and self-reliance that are prevalent among Koreans.

None of this, however, indicates that Korean nationalism has been waning. In fact, Ahn’s case serves to rearticulate a vision of Koreanness based on bloodline, the superiority of which his athletic prowess is said to serve as proof. The findings presented here thus challenge existing analyses of Ahn and popular discourse surrounding him purporting to show that nationalism in Korea has been in retreat. Through their seeming contradictions, the discussions of Ahn combine the neoliberal values of cosmopolitanism and the rhetoric of meritocracy with traditional Korean ethnic and developmental nationalism.

The findings of this study broadly resonate with existing studies examining mainstream newspapers and other media reports (J.-W. Park & Lim, 2014). Yi (2015), for example, has demonstrated that most news articles about Ahn have dealt with the relationship between sports and the nation-state and that developmentalist nationalist discourse and transnational discourse coexist and compete. This does not mean, however, that popular discourses are mere reflections of mainstream media framing. Although a significant number of news articles (14%) discuss Ahn’s naturalization in terms of individual success (i.e., not as a result of problems within the Korean sports community), popular comments do not follow this same trend. Daum users accordingly need to be seen as discursive actors who actively produce, challenge, and (re)create discourse—in Ahn’s case, nationalistic discourse—in online spaces. Thus, the distinctive contribution of this article has been its focus on the popular discussion of Ahn in Korea rather than on the media coverage, and it is hoped that future research will further explore the connections between these two discourses.

In examining the relationship between nationalism and neoliberal globalization, I have also highlighted the symbolic role played by sports celebrities who simultaneously symbolize such cosmopolitan values as flexible citizenship and galvanize potent nationalistic fervor. As more and more athletes cross national borders in the pursuit of individual success, their role in (re)articulating the cultural politics of belonging will only increase. There is accordingly need for greater academic attention to the relationships among sports celebrity, globalization, and nationalism.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Jinsook Kim

Notes

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