Memories of Repatriates from Japan to North Korea: Stories of Separated Families and Narratives of Reunification

Abstract

This dissertation examines the lives and family histories of Zainichi Koreans who boarded repatriation ships from Japan to North Korea about 60 years ago in the context of the postcolonial reshaping of East Asia and the Cold War. The first repatriation ship departed from Japan to North Korea on 14 December 1959. In total, 93,340 people--including 6,730 Japanese people (about 1,800 Japanese spouses married to Korean men and their children)--were repatriated from Japan to North Korea between 1959 and 1984. The thesis focuses on the experiences of people who moved to North Korea as teenagers (referred to here as the "1.5 generation" of returnees--as distinct from the first generation, who chose to move as adults, and the second generation, who were born in North Korea). The vast majority of the first generation originated from the southern part of Korea, but nonetheless decided to move to North Korea with their families. Existing research commonly views the repatriation as a symbolic and historical event in the post-war political order of Northeast Asia: a region which was at the intersection of Cold War and Hot War conflicts and postcolonial processes. Existing studies on escaped Zainichi Korean returnees (those who have left North Korea as refugees) also explore how they were influenced by the perspectives and ideologies of postcolonial nation-states (South Korea, North Korea or Japan) and often examine this history within the frame of the Cold War inter-state competition. Returnees are an example of an excluded group who do not fit into the frame of dominant memories of the post-war postcolonial states. Drawing on interviews conducted with members of the "1.5 generation" who have escaped from North Korea and are now living in Japan and South Korea, my research approaches returnees' life histories and family histories as historical (re)constructions that are shaped by their interactions with the evolving structures of inclusion and exclusion in Japan, South Korea and North Korea. Returnee memories are testimonies about repatriation and life in North Korea, but the ways in which the returnees create meaning within those memories are also configured by the political and social contexts in which they were (and are) living. By creating space to listen attentively to the contradictions within the lives and family histories of individuals--rather than framing these individuals and their stories through national, ethnic, or ideological lenses--it is possible to shed new light on the structures that supress crucial aspects of these memories. This thesis thus treats the Cold War/Hot War, not as a past event, but rather as a structural force that influences the microlevel and private spheres of individuals and families in Northeast Asia today, and proposes that documenting the memories of forgotten people from a holistic point of view is a practice which may help to develop a post-Cold War imagination. Show more