Life behind a mosquito net
Foreign student experiences of North Korea’s backstage
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 18966388 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Alek Sigley (0000-0003-2031-2821, Stanford University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 22 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 133-152 |
| Publication date | 2023-04-03 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Asian Anthropology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1683-478X • E-ISSN: 2168-4227 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/1683478x.2023.2192026 |
| OpenAlex | W4375949977 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 5 |
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
Geography · Media studies · Pedagogy · Political science · Sociology · Study abroad · Witness · Korean Peninsula Historical and Political Studies · Law
| Highly cited | No |
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