Kyung Hee Ha
Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies, University of California, San Diego
Supervisors: Yến Lê Espiritu, Jin-kyung Lee, John Lie, Kalindi Vora, Wayne K. Yang, and Lisa Yoneyama
Supervisors: Yến Lê Espiritu, Jin-kyung Lee, John Lie, Kalindi Vora, Wayne K. Yang, and Lisa Yoneyama
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dissolution of the Soviet Union (1991), North Korea stands in isolation from not only Western liberal societies, but also former
Eastern bloc with its nuclear weapons programs under ‘military first’ policy, or Sŏngun. In spite of the condemnation of North
Korea as an ‘axis of evil’ and the subsequent sanctions against
North Korea and its associates, socialist ideas and practices as well as ‘allegiance’ to a ‘rogue state’ appear to be well alive in pro-
North Korean schools Japan.
Based on ethnographic observation and interview data, this essay explores the politics and poetics of dissent. Members of the
pro-North Korean schools disrupt the politics of respectability that
only allows two ways to become legible subjects in contemporary Japanese society – either as victims of North Korea’s dictatorship or as someone who disavows it. Instead, they strive to gain
agency beyond these two readily available positions vis-à-vis North Korea. In doing so, however, their political and cultural responses are not always in the most progressive forms or purely
nationalistic, but entail nuances and flexibilities by actively engaging with neoliberal capitalist logic and South Korean
popular culture. By examining their day-to-day politics of living, this essay sheds light on how people negotiate the socialist legacies in growing neoliberalism, as well as their contradictory
strategies and competing discourses to navigate, defy and challenge the material, discursive and affective consequences of
being associated with North Korea today.
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dissolution of the Soviet Union (1991), North Korea stands in isolation from not only Western liberal societies, but also former
Eastern bloc with its nuclear weapons programs under ‘military first’ policy, or Sŏngun. In spite of the condemnation of North
Korea as an ‘axis of evil’ and the subsequent sanctions against
North Korea and its associates, socialist ideas and practices as well as ‘allegiance’ to a ‘rogue state’ appear to be well alive in pro-
North Korean schools Japan.
Based on ethnographic observation and interview data, this essay explores the politics and poetics of dissent. Members of the
pro-North Korean schools disrupt the politics of respectability that
only allows two ways to become legible subjects in contemporary Japanese society – either as victims of North Korea’s dictatorship or as someone who disavows it. Instead, they strive to gain
agency beyond these two readily available positions vis-à-vis North Korea. In doing so, however, their political and cultural responses are not always in the most progressive forms or purely
nationalistic, but entail nuances and flexibilities by actively engaging with neoliberal capitalist logic and South Korean
popular culture. By examining their day-to-day politics of living, this essay sheds light on how people negotiate the socialist legacies in growing neoliberalism, as well as their contradictory
strategies and competing discourses to navigate, defy and challenge the material, discursive and affective consequences of
being associated with North Korea today.