Imagining Future North Korean Sites of Memory: Politics, Time and Vibrant Natures

Keywords: North Korea, autocratic spaces, sites of memory, time
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Friday
Session Start / End Time: 2/25/2022 08:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/25/2022 09:20 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 60

Abstract

North Korean landscapes and natures have long been harnessed in support of its politics and ideology, becoming one with historical traditions which then are embedded in both its physical and conceptual terrains. This paper considers these places holding in mind the work of Jason Moore (2015), Edensor/DeSilvey (2012 and Bennett (2012) on the power of material objects, things and forces in the wider frameworks of politics and culture. Natures co-produced by humans, technologies and the global environment in the ‘Web of Life’ are vibrant, active, lively matters in flux. Does this flux and liveliness however cross temporal or anamnestic boundaries. Following a transformation on Korean Peninsula in which North Korea and its autocratic political forms as we know might cease to exist, how would future politics and cultural power impact on terrains so heavily transformed by the culture, ideology and history of Pyongyang. How will we remember these political landscapes and natures? How will we remember North Korean politics, ideology, sites of history and memory? This paper considers in particular spaces of North Korean political memory, such as the Samjiyon Grand Monument, the Birch Trees of Lake Samji and the memorial terrains around Mt Paektu. The paper explores what it might be to remember such North Korean political/environmental places in a time when the nation as currently constituted no longer exists. How will they be remembered, who will remember and just how lively or active will these memories be?