Overview

Belonging in a House Divided chronicles the everyday lives of resettled North Korean refugees in South Korea and their experiences of violence, postwar citizenship, and ethnic boundary making. Through extensive ethnographic research, Joowon Park documents the emergence of cultural differences and tensions between Koreans from the North and South, as well as new transnational kinship practices that connect family members across the Korean Demilitarized Zone. As a South Korean citizen raised outside the peninsula and later drafted into the military, Park weaves in autoethnographic accounts of his own experience in the army to provide an empathetic and vivid analysis of the multiple overlapping layers of violence that shape the embodied experiences of belonging. He asks readers to consider why North Korean resettlement in South Korea is a difficult process, despite a shared goal of reunification and the absence of a language barrier. The book is essential reading for anyone interested in anthropology, migration, and the politics of humanitarianism.

Full Product Details

9780520384231

Table of Contents

Reviews

"""A horrific yet compassionate story."" * Ethnic and Racial Studies * ""Park’s book is highly recommended as a critical antidote to the often generic and diluted representations of North Koreans. . .This book is worthwhile reading for any observer and student of (North) Korean studies, citizenship and migration, gender studies, cultural anthropology, human rights, and politics."" * Asian Journal of Social Science * ""Belonging in a House Divided offers a novel perspective. . . it invites readers to critically examine the interplay between violence, displacement, and the pursuit of belonging, thereby expanding our comprehension of the intricate realities surrounding migratory processes."" * International Migration Review *"

"""A horrific yet compassionate story."" * Ethnic and Racial Studies *"

Author Information

Joowon Park is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Skidmore College.

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