Hanee Kang

Hanee Kang has been involved in research and advocacy, aiming to address the necessity for change in public perception and policy narratives within South Korea’s international development aid circle and beyond. 

Hanee is currently undertaking her PhD research titled “Subtle Variations Between Postcoloniality and Post-coloniality in South Korean Aid: Transforming and Transmitting National Development Experiences for Global Development (The Case Study of Saemaul Undong ODA, Official Development Assistance).” In this research, she explores why academic and critical discussions regarding postcoloniality and post-coloniality have been absent in Seoul’s international development aid discourse. In addressing this research question, she traces how postcoloniality and post-coloniality intersect and even overlap in the course of “picking and mixing” South Korea’s national development experiences as “one of the biggest global economies rose from a war-torn, world’s poorest country.” 

Before embarking on her doctoral studies, she served as a researcher at the Re-shaping Development Institute (ReDI) in Seoul from 2011 to 2016. During this period, she accumulated experience in aid-related policy research, project planning, and monitoring & evaluations. Since 2009 and continuing to the present, Hanee has actively engaged in the actions of a Seoul-based civil society organisation called People’s Initiative for Development Alternatives (PIDA). Here, members with diverse backgrounds, ranging from NGO workers to academic researchers, collaborate towards creating a more just and equal global development policy and practice. The diverse opportunities she encountered, including witnessing aid practices and interacting with a variety of individuals, sparked her interest in exploring questions related to aid philosophy and development discourse. 

She holds a master's degree in international studies (development cooperation) from Ewha Womans University in Seoul (2009-2011) and studied a master’s program in Southeast Asian studies at Sogang University in Seoul (2016-2018). Additionally, she undertook semester-abroad programs at the George Washington University in Washington D.C. (2010) and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2006). In 2014, Hanee spent a month as a visiting research fellow at the Humanitarian Policy Group (HPG) at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) in London. In 2018, she participated in the six-week graduate student fellowship program at the Asia Research Institute (ARI) at the National University of Singapore. 

Her academic achievements include being invited as one of the 10 budding scholars to participate in the 1st Budding Scholar Camp at the Korea Association of International Development and Cooperation (2022) and the Korean Association of Southeast Asian Studies (2024) respectively.

Kim, Soyeun, and Hanee Kang. 2015. “Young and Dynamic? —The Curious Case of Korea’s National Level Post-2015 Process”. 

Journal of International Development 27 (6): 776–800. doi:10.1002/jid.3115 Kang, Hanee, and Seung-ji Choi. 2015. 

Shadow Report on Korea’s progress in the OECD DAC Peer Review Recommendations: For the Attention of the Mid-term Peer Review Team. Seoul: PIDA(People’s Initiative for Development Alternatives, formerly ODA Watch) & ReDI(Re-shaping Development Institute) Kim, Soyeun, and Hanee Kang. 2018. 

“A Review of Southeast Asia-related Development Cooperation Studies in Korea: Exploring a Possible Contribution from the Critical Southeast Asian Studies.” 

The Southeast Asian Review 28(2): 47–84. (written in Korean) 

Hanee’s research interests include: - International development aid; foreign aid - Development discourse; Postcolonialism and development studies - Colonial modernity; continuing influences of colonial legacy - Non-traditional donors; non-DAC donors; emerging donors - Aid programs utilising donor country’s national development experiences - The changing relationship between South Korea and the Global South - South Korean aid

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