Description
South Korea’s transformation from a colonised and aid-dependent state into an OECD-DAC (Development Assistance Committee) donor has been celebrated as a success story. Along with other East Asian nations, its modernisation is often portrayed as distinct from Western trajectories. Yet while debates have focused on Korea’s ‘unique’ development model and close ties to domestic corporate interests, the postcolonial dynamics behind this transformation have received little attention. This paper argues that Korea’s trajectory unsettles binaries such as North/South, modern/traditional, and donor/recipient, calling for a more critical reading of how emerging donors navigate global hierarchies of development. Drawing on discourse and institutional analysis of Korea’s DAC accession process and its approach to partner countries, the paper examines the implications of Korea’s paradoxical stance. It shows how its ambivalent identity, shaped by a history of subjugation and rapid ascent, have sustained hierarchies rooted in traditional development regimes while promoting empathy with the Global South. The paper argues that postcolonial memories and aspirations for recognition have produced hybrid logics of aid that risk replicating the very hierarchies they aim to transcend. By analysing Korea as a postcolonial donor, it highlights how identity and memory shape the uneven terrain of contemporary development cooperation.
