창작과 비평

[Feature] Making a 'Society' in the Division System / Kim Sung-Kyung

The Quarterly Changbi 179, Spring 2018

 

Abstract

Kim Sung-Kyung defines our society's deep-rooted apathy to the division system as "division-schizophrenia", that is, an unwillingness or an inability to take the other (North Korea) for one's equal counterpart. Under the division system, we have to face the contradictory concepts which make us take North Korea as one Korean race, and yet a hostile country at the same time, This schizophrenic perception makes it hard to integrate the relations between the members in community. As this article aptly demonstrates, analyzing how the mechanism of the division system works in the private sectors as well as political and discourse dimensions could enable us to become more aware of the division system itself and to imagine new subjects emerging in a reunified Korean society as well.