De-Bordering Korea: Tangible and Intangible Legacies of the Sunshine Policy

Presentation of De-Bordering Korea: Tangible and Intangible Legacies of the Sunshine Policy (Valérie Gelézeau, Koen De Ceuster and Alain Delissen, eds.)

Following some tense weeks earlier in 2013, inter-Korean relations seem to have entered calmer  waters once more. The  military hotline between the two Koreas has been reestablished, activity at the Kaesŏng Industrial Complex is picking up again and for the first time in three years, inter-Korean family reunions are scheduled from 25 September onwards.

Appearances aside, this is not a return to the Sunshine Policy era of rapprochement to North Korea. The Sunshine policy of engagement and cooperation with North Korea has been publicly criticized and discredited for not having been able to stop North Korea’s international provocations (missile launches and nuclear tests). 

This book argues that the tendency to approach inter-Korean affairs in general and North Korea in particular solely from a political (science) angle, misses some of the fundamental changes that did take place during that decade. Through geographical, anthropological, historical, cultural and sociological case studies, this book documents the otherwise under researched spatial, social and cultural impact of the Sunshine policy and concludes that the success of the Sunshine policy unwittingly contributed to its undoing.

During the book presentation, Roland Bleiker,  professor of international relations at the University of Queensland and author of (a.o.) Divided Korea: Toward a Culture of Reconciliation (University of Minnesota Press, 2005/2008) and Young Chul Cho, Korea Foundation Visiting Professor at IIAS/LIAS  will discuss the book. The book editors  will be present to answer further questions. The book presentation will be moderated by Remco Breuker, Korean Studies chair at Leiden University.

Foto: North Korean Pang Yŏngwŏn (r) shakes hands with Yi Yisun, the South Korean wife of his elder brother during an inter-Korean family reunion in October 2010 at the Mount Kŭmgang Resort (Xinhua/AFP photo).