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Life behind a mosquito net: foreign student experiences of North Korea’s backstage

Life behind a mosquito net: foreign student experiences of North Korea’s backstage Abstract North Korea-based foreign students enjoy unique circumstances as long-term foreign residents of Pyongyang. In contrast to short-term outside visitors such as international tourists, they partake in freedoms and privileges that the xenophobic North Korean state seldom grants to foreigners, such as the ability to walk the streets of Pyongyang unaccompanied. They also interact extensively with local Koreans such as the North Korean students who live alongside them in the dormitory, and their teachers at university. However, like other classes of foreigners in North Korea, they too are monitored and presented a propaganda front. Drawing upon interviews with foreigners who studied at Kim Il Sung University, this article utilizes Goffman’s dramaturgical framework to tease out ways in which the closer proximity and longer exposure to North Koreans that North Korea-based foreign students enjoy affords them opportunities to witness dramaturgical failure, thereby affording them glimpses into the North Korean backstage. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Asian Anthropology Taylor & Francis

Life behind a mosquito net: foreign student experiences of North Korea’s backstage

Sigley, Alek
Asian Anthropology , Volume 22 (2): 20 – Apr 3, 2023
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20 pages

Life behind a mosquito net: foreign student experiences of North Korea’s backstage

Abstract

Abstract North Korea-based foreign students enjoy unique circumstances as long-term foreign residents of Pyongyang. In contrast to short-term outside visitors such as international tourists, they partake in freedoms and privileges that the xenophobic North Korean state seldom grants to foreigners, such as the ability to walk the streets of Pyongyang unaccompanied. They also interact extensively with local Koreans such as the North Korean students who live alongside them in the dormitory, and...
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Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Copyright
© 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
ISSN
2168-4227
eISSN
1683-478X
DOI
10.1080/1683478X.2023.2192026
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Abstract North Korea-based foreign students enjoy unique circumstances as long-term foreign residents of Pyongyang. In contrast to short-term outside visitors such as international tourists, they partake in freedoms and privileges that the xenophobic North Korean state seldom grants to foreigners, such as the ability to walk the streets of Pyongyang unaccompanied. They also interact extensively with local Koreans such as the North Korean students who live alongside them in the dormitory, and their teachers at university. However, like other classes of foreigners in North Korea, they too are monitored and presented a propaganda front. Drawing upon interviews with foreigners who studied at Kim Il Sung University, this article utilizes Goffman’s dramaturgical framework to tease out ways in which the closer proximity and longer exposure to North Koreans that North Korea-based foreign students enjoy affords them opportunities to witness dramaturgical failure, thereby affording them glimpses into the North Korean backstage.

Journal

Asian Anthropology – Taylor & Francis

Published: Apr 3, 2023

Keywords: North Korea; Pyongyang; foreign students; Kim Il Sung University; dramaturgy

References

  • Simmel at a Distance: On the History and Systematics of the Sociology of the Stranger
  • When Chris Marker Freely Photographed, and Briefly Fell in Love with, North Korea
  • North Korean University Students Bribe lecturers for Better Grades
  • “The 1967 Speech that Set North Korean Totalitarianism in Stone
  • Puk Yŏnil ‘Sasangjŏn’ Tongnyŏ… ‘Chapsasang Mangnŭn Mogijang Ch’ija’ [North Korea Repeatedly Encourages ‘Ideological Warfare’… ‘Put Up a Mosquito Net to Keep Out Bad Ideologies’]
  • Kimjŏngil Iŏ Kimjŏngŭndo ‘Mogijang Kaebangnon’ [Kim Jong Un Follows Kim Jong Il with Mosquito Net Theory of Opening]