Suk-young Kim is rapidly becoming one of the most innovative and insightful scholars writing about North Korea. In this unique new book, Kim has produced a deeply personal yet also theoretically ambitious perspective on relations between the two Koreas that explores and challenges existing ideas about the nature of citizenship, nationalism, and personal and national identity. Kim's focus is on those people who have challenged the division of the peninsula by crossing the demilitarized zone (DMZ), often in opposition to the stated wishes of the two governments.
The key argument in DMZ Crossing is that the people define themselves well beyond the geopolitical reach of the state and have a far more complex and varied relationship with the state, their people, and themselves. Kim writes that when individuals test the geopolitical limits of the Korean division, it is an attempt to create citizenship based on “emotional affiliation rather than a constitutional delineation” (p. 4). Kim uses the term “performance” as the lens through which she explores various ways in which individuals have challenged the division of Korea. Performance in this case is not fiction, but rather a lens that can capture the range of issues attached to border crossing: the ways in which such crossing is visually represented and transmitted, the fact that many crossings are aimed at a specific audience or set of spectators, the emotions of the performer and the intended emotions of the audience, and the individual agency that lies at the root of border crossing. In this way, she is interested in how people who choose to cross the DMZ perform that act—how they decide to cross, how they are viewed by others, and the impact and meaning of that crossing.
Empirically, Kim moves through a chronological examination of representations of border crossings in theater (1950s) and cinema (1960s and 1970s), and also examines actual people who have crossed the border—North Korean spies and a South Korean activist in the 1980s—as represented by documentary films, and the state's representation of the DMZ through its presentation in museums in the contemporary era. She explores how individuals have defined themselves and their nation, often in opposition to the strict geopolitical definitions imposed by the competing states in the north and the south. Kim emphasizes bottom-up ideas of belonging and kinship, rather than top-down imposed definitions of duties expected by the state.
In each chapter, Kim shows how the South Korean and North Korean sides have depicted the DMZ, themselves, and each other. The similarities in the ways they view each other are often more telling than the differences. For example, chapter 2 examines two films made at the height of the Cold War, and the height of stable dictatorships on both sides of the DMZ. The South Korean film, The DMZ (1965), and the North Korean film, The Fates of Geumhui and Eunhui (1975), both depict divided siblings who search for each other—and figuratively, a whole Korea—after encountering the DMZ itself. In both films, the siblings cannot ultimately reunite. The continuing division of the peninsula makes any conclusion to a movie about the DMZ difficult, and both movies end with narrations deploring the division, as well as the division of families and the Korean people themselves.
It is almost cliché to say that all Koreans have been affected by the division and war, even if their families did not suffer directly at that time. Yet it is also probably true. DMZ Crossing is Kim's attempt to make sense of the emotional, affective ways in which Koreans on both sides of the DMZ have dealt with, ignored, suppressed, or manipulated the division of the peninsula as they seek to understand and endure the division. This book also serves as a clear rebuttal to an emerging belief that the younger South Korean generation does not seek unification because it is too costly. The opinion polls that lead to such conclusions have no ability to capture the deep and enduring impact the division continues to have on all Koreans on both sides of the border, and the numerous and varied ways in which they continue to experience the DMZ, and the division of Korea.
This is a superb book, richly detailed, and will be important reading for anyone wishing to understand how both Koreas and the people themselves define, view, and interact with each other. Suk-young Kim continues to challenge us to think about Korea and the division of the peninsula in new and insightful ways.
