As a sociologist, Haenam Park studies urbanism and mass culture in East Asia, focusing on the mega-events like Olympics and Expos. His doctoral dissertation focused on how the developmental state utilized the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games implementing urban politics and social politics to control over behavior of the citizens in 1980s Korean society. Before joining the Seoul National University Asia Center, he expanded his field of research on youth culture, nationalism, and mutual recognition in East Asia, as an HK research professor at the Center for Northeast Asian Humanities and Social Sciences at Wonkwang University. He is currently working on some books and articles. He examines the effect of the 1964 Tokyo Olympiads, 1988 Seoul Olympiads, and 2008 Beijing Olympiads on the formation of urbanity in East Asia, analyzing how the three cities perceived the gaze of international society and how they made new landscapes, as a ‘presentation of self’, during the preparation of the mega-events.