Biopolitics and Human Agency of North Korean border crossers: The Ethics of Coexistence, Mobility-Identity-Security Analysis (MISA), and Risk Analysis (RA)

Abstract

This thesis discusses mobility, identity, and security (MIS), risk to life, emancipatory everyday peace in the context of biopolitics and human agency of North Korean border crossers. It begins with providing a new concept of human agency comprised of ability and answerability laid on the ground of the ethics of coexistence. Next, the thesis provides prevalent definitions of three identity groups of human mobility – defector, refugee, and international migrant – and reconceptualizes them into descriptive definitions adjusted to North Korean border crossers rest on legal frameworks of five states – South Korea, China, Russia, the US, and the UK. Based on the findings gained from the empirical cases, the thesis develops its mobility-identity-security analysis by reconfiguring the relationship between state and non-state actors and human agents, depoliticizing the identity groups of border crossers, and tracing the emancipatory journey of everyday peacebuilding. At the heart of the analysis is interrelatedness in which coexistence and human agency are two main pillars. Noting that attention to the risk of the border crossing at the individual level in previous academic and professional literature has been insufficient, this thesis sets forth its risk analysis using individual border crossers as a research unit and explains the risk to life circulating in the ecology of border crossing. Specifically, risk assessment methods are developed in this thesis by applying theoretical grounds of human security and peace to the practice of migration politics. The thesis presents a set of analytical tools covering from theoretical exploration of bare life in the international scapegoat system to the quantification of life-threatening risks in border crossing at the individual level, having direct policy relevance to migration management and humanitarian practices. It attempts to empower the disempowered life, border crossers, in the discussions of their identity and security and shape the vision of peace, emancipation, and coexistence freed from negation, competition, and disciplines. The thesis concludes with its contributions to Korean politics, biopolitics, and peace studies and suggests avenues for future research to improve the values that this thesis has unveiled.