Preliminary Discourse on Donghak Assembly Theory – Donghak as Assembly and Assemblage

This study introduces the concept of the “Donghak Assembly,” referring to the collective struggles led by the Donghak community between the summer of 1892 and December 1904, framed as A/O (assembly/occupy) movements. The term is employed to transcend the narrow confines of conventional “peasant war” or “class revolution” interpretations, and instead to explore new possibilities for writing people’s history from the perspective of biopolitics. From its inception, the Donghak community sought to realize the principle of protecting the nation and comforting the people through collective practices of gathering and organizing—podŏk, pojŏp, kipo, and tohoe. The characterization of Donghak as both assembly and assemblage is thus a metaphorical expression of these features.<br/> Methodologically, the study applies William Sewell’s eventful approach to analyze the transformation of Donghak identity across three phases: the Eundo period (1864 1891), the Hyeondo period (1892 1894), and the transitional period (1895 1904). The theoretical framework draws on Negri and Hardt’s theory of the multitude, Butler’s theory of performativity, Deleuze’s concepts of assemblage and rhizome, and Sewell’s eventful analysis. Through this lens, the Donghak Assembly is understood not as a single event but as a multi-evental, multi-layered process, within which the emergence of assembly- based people—or modern subjects—can be traced.<br/> The study concludes that Donghak was not a monolithic doctrinal entity but an assembly/assemblage constituted through entangled and heterogeneous elements. In the process of the Donghak Assembly, the community attempted to form rhizomatic networks, organizing solidarity and cooperation across differences. Although ultimately unsuccessful, the decade-long experience of Donghak Assembly provided a prototype for later Korean assemblies, from the March First Movement to the contemporary candlelight and impeachment assemblies, thereby offering the historical foundation of the “K-Assembly.”