| Anthropologically, identity has been understood as a discursive product which is shaped within self-conscious agents' narratives and discourses. This study investigates the identity formation of North Korean refugees as they are being acculturated to South Korea. At the end of the Korean War in 1953, the formerly homogeneous nation of Korea was divided into two politically different regimes. Since then, North and South Koreans have not corresponded with each other. Economic deterioration and natural disasters in the early 1990s caused serious famine in the communist society of North Korea. The number of North Koreans crossing the border into China increased; many of them went on to move into South Korea. By 2007, over 14,000 North Korean immigrants have settled down in South Korea and become South Korean citizens.;How are North Korean immigrants perceived and shaped by the South Korean government and citizens? How do North Korean immigrants shape themselves and make use of the labels they are given in adapting to an unfamiliar capitalist society? To examine these issues, I conducted field research from 2001 to 2007 at a governmental resettlement facility, among non-profit organizations which help North Korean immigrants adapt, and schools in which North and South Korean youths interact. I developed a person-centered ethnography that examines how North Korean immigrants' subjectivities are constructed in their acts of narrating and representing themselves.;By analyzing their narrative strategies, I examined the power relations and hegemonic structures that influence their self-construction in South Korea. Although official discourse emphasizes homogeneity in the pursuit of national unification between the two Koreans, North Korean immigrants are treated as cultural inferiors, those who, because of their cultural differences, are possessed and receive munificence rather than possessing material wealth. This unequal power relationship makes North Korean immigrants conceal their identity when possible, but sometimes they expose it in diverse contexts in order to take advantage of the welfare programs prepared for North Korean immigrants. I show how cultural conflict and ideological work is generated between the two Koreans through the immigrants' strategic acts of revealing and concealing themselves in the adaptive process of becoming citizens of a capitalist society. |
