In this Periscope dossier, Korean diasporic scholars, artists, and cultural practitioners located across a geopolitical, interdisciplinary, and cultural spectrum consider the meanings of “demilitarized peace” in relation to the Korean War. By “demilitarized peace,” we refer to multi-scalar, multi-directional processes that cannot be solely confined to the realm of national diplomacy or a progressive timeline marked by definitive beginning and end points. The Korean War, after all, has not yet formally ended. Indeed, in the absence of a peace treaty, the seventy-year conflict has been characterized by an ebb-and-flow of potential peace offerings and the threat of rekindled fighting. While official negotiations mediated by nation-states are imperative to resolving key concerns including familial separations and nuclear warfare, respondents confront the meaning of state-produced “peace” when it remains indebted to and secured by US militarized investments. In contrast, respondents center a racialized, gendered, and feminist analysis to track accrued forms of colonial violence that remain on the fringes of inter/national negotiations for Korean peace, capitalist prosperity, and militarized stability. Specifically, by foregrounding an interdisciplinary range of aesthetic productions, cultural practices, and archival traces, the following multimedia essays reframe demilitarized peace through the critical lens of resistance and genuine security delinked from US empire and militarized occupation. Co-edited by Crystal Mun-hye Baik and Jane Jin Kaisen, this dossier’s contributors include Yong Soon Min, Suzy Kim, Soni Kum, Patty Ahn, Sukjong Hong, and Haruki Eda. Important editorial and conceptual feedback was provided by Chonghwa Lee.
In the past year, political uncertainties in the Korean Peninsula have been pronounced. While much can be said about the oscillating tensions between North Korea, South Korea, and the United States, it has been abundantly clear that official peace agreements … Continue reading “Introduction”
I purchased two bundles of postcards during my travels to the DMZ, more specifically to Panmunjom and the Joint Security Area–one from ROK (South Korea/SK) in 1995 and one from DPRK (North Korea/NK) in 1998. I selected five images from … Continue reading “Both Sides Now”
The February 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in South Korea set the stage for the historic inter-Korea and North Korea-US summits, which occurred in quick succession in the following months. The North and South Korean leaders, Chairman Kim Jong Un and … Continue reading “Women as “Dupes,” “Stooges,” and “Armies of Beauties””
In this act, performed along the banks of the Imjin River in South Korea in 2015, I provide an offering that gestures to the relationship between the living and the dead in contemporary society. By providing seven paper boats to … Continue reading “Offering, Seven Boats”
Figure 1. South Korean soldiers erect a tower of loudspeakers along Korea’s Demilitarized Zone. Figure 2. South Korean soldiers adjust the broadcasts from inside a control room. The sounds of militarized division have permeated the landscape in and around Korea’s … Continue reading “The Sounds of Demilitarized Peace”
By the end of Japan’s colonization of Korea (1910-45), over two million Koreans lived in Japan. My grandfather, for instance, came to Japan as a soldier in the Japanese Imperial Army. (I don’t know when.) Others had come to supply … Continue reading “Unmaking Borders to Demilitarize Peace: A Zainichi Korean Experience”
