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“Fieldwork” North Korea: Observations of daily life on the ground inside the country

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Emma Campbell
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Summary

This paper uses observations collected “on the ground” inside North Korea to argue that everyday life matters when researching North Korea and that one method of carrying out such research is to travel there as a tourist.

Keywords

North KoreaSouth KoreaDPRKdaily life politicsresearch methods
Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 12 , Issue 40 , October 2014 , e2
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2014

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References

Notes

1 In this article I use the terms North Korea and South Korea to refer to the two Koreas, rather than referring to the respective nations' official names of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the Republic of Korea. I do this because the focus of this article is the population rather than the state.

2 Bruce Cumings, North Korea: Another Country, The New Press, 2013, pp.1.

3 Pyongyang Project - “May Program on Economic Development and Cross-Border Interaction,” Accessed 14 July 2014.

4 Examples of scholarship written from this perspective include Barbara Demick, Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea, London, Granta Publications, 2010; Sonia Ryang (ed.), North Korea: Toward a Better Understanding, Lanham and Plymouth, Lexington Books, 2009; Andrei Lankov, The Real North Korea, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2012.

5 Chad O'Carroll, ‘Is Tourism in North Korea Really Booming?’, NK News, 20 February 2013. Accessed 14 July 2014; Kristine Savando, ‘How North Korea is Coping with Uncouth Tourists from China’, South China Morning Post, 5 August 2013. Accessed 14 July 2014.

6 Geoffrey Cain, ‘Message to North Korea Engagers: You're Helping Kim Jong Un’, Global Post, February 7, 2014. Accessed 14 July 2014.

7 Chad O'Carroll, ‘Tourism to North Korea: Right or Wrong?‘ The Guardian, 1 May 2014. Accessed 14 July 2014.

8 John Bolton, ‘Doing a Big Favour for Kim Jong Un,’ New York Daily News, 8 January 2013. Accessed 14 July 2014. John McCain also tweeted that Eric Schmidt and Bill Richardson were ‘useful idiots’ and stated in a CNN interview that Dennis Rodman was ‘an idiot’ and ‘that he really does provide propaganda for this very brutal ruthless young man,‘ Accessed 14 July 2014.

9 Chad O'Carroll, 2014, op. cit.

10 Ibid.

11 Tessa Morris Suzuki, To the Diamond Mountains: A Hundred Year Journey through China and Korea, Lanham, Rowman and Littlefield, 2010, pp. 94. See also Tessa Morris-Suzuki, ‘To the Diamond Mountains: A Hundred Year Journey Through China and Korea, 1910-2010,‘ The Asia-Pacific Journal, vol. 46, no. 1, November 15, 2010.

12 Rüdiger Frank, ‘The Arirang Mass Games of North Korea’, The Asia-Pacific Journal, vol. 11, no. 2, December 16, 2013.

13 Jan Kubik, ‘Ethnography of Politics: Foundations, Applications, Prospects’, in E. Schatz (ed.), Political Ethnography: What Immersion Contributes to the Study of Power, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2009, pp. 33.

14 See for example, Benedict Kerkvliet, ‘Village-state relations in Vietnam: The effect of everyday politics on decollectivization’, The Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 54, no.2, May 1995, pp. 396; and Benedict Kerkvlient, The Power of Everyday Politics: How Vietnamese Peasants Transformed National Policy, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2005.

15 On North Korea see authors including Tessa Morris-Suzuki, ‘Exodus to North Korea Revisited: Japan, North Korea, and the ICRC in the “Repatriation” of Ethnic Koreans from Japan’, The Asia-Pacific Journal, vol. 9, no. 2, May 2011; and Charles Armstrong, ‘The Possibility of Civil Society in North Korea’, in Charles K. Armstrong (ed.), Korean Society: Civil Society, Democracy and the State, London and New York, Routledge, 2009, pp. 191-208.

16 Information on Entry & Investment into Rajin-Sonbrong District. Accessed 14 July 2014.

17 Our tour group visited a new Russian restaurant that is serving the Russian expatriate population. It has an expatriate chef.

18 Soo-Ho Lim, ‘China-North Korea relations and Rajin-Sŏnbong Special Economic Zone’, SERI Quarterly, vol. 3, no. 3, July 2010, pp. 123-129.

19 Kristine Savando, op. cit.

20 It is notable that during Dennis Rodman's visit to Munsu Water Park famously opened by Kim Jong Un in 2013, Rodman was surrounded, not by North Koreans, but by Chinese tourists who were using this newly constructed facility.

21 Chad O'Carroll, ‘Is Tourism in North Korea Really Booming?‘, NKNews.org, 20 February 2013. Accessed 19 September 2014.

22 Trade with China has increased on average 40 percent annually between 2009 and 2014. See ‘Inter-Korean trade hits 8-year low in 2013,‘ Yonhap News, 23 February 2014. Accessed 14 July 2014.

23 North Korean Economy Watch, ‘Rajin Market on Display to Foreigners’. Accessed 14 July.

24 Daniel Byman and Jennifer Lind, ‘Pyongyang's Survival Strategy: Tools of Authoritarian Control in North Korea’, International Security, Vol. 35, No. 1, 2010, pp. 44-74; Andrei N. Lankov, In-ok Kwak and Choong-Bin Cho, ‘The Organizational Life: Daily Surveillance and Daily Resistance in North Korea’, Journal of East Asian Studies, vol. 12, 2012, pp. 193-214.

25 See for example Dennis Deletant, Ceauşescu and the Securitate: coercion and dissent in Romania, 1965-1989, London and New York, M.E. Sharpe, 1995.

26 Hyung-min Joo, ‘Hidden transcripts in marketplaces: politicized discourses in the North Korean shadow economy’, The Pacific Review, vol. 27, no.1, 2014, pp. 49-71; Noland, ‘They're not brainwashed’, op. cit.; Andrei N. Lankov, In-ok Kwak and Choong-Bin Cho, ‘The Organizational Life’, op. cit. Accessed 14 July 2014.

27 Lankov, ‘The Real North Korea’, op. cit.; Yong-Sueng Dong, ‘The Rise of North Korea's Merchant Class’, SERI Quarterly, vol. 4, no. 4, 2013, pp. 67-76.; Changyoung Choi, ‘Everyday Politics’, op. cit.

28 World Food Programme. Accessed 14 July 2014.

29 Justin McCurry, ‘North Korea's Health System in Disarray’, The Lancet, vol. 376, 2010, pp. 318.

30 Swiss International Cooperation. Accessed 14 July 2014. See also UNICEF. Accessed 14 July 2014.

31 Kwonjune J Seung, Stephen W Linton, ‘The Growing Problem of Multi drug-Resistant tuberculosis in North Korea’, PLoS Medicine, vol. 10, no.7, 2013.

32 Swiss International Cooperation-Water Sanitation and Hygeine. Accessed 14 July 2014.

33 In 2013, North Korea's GDP per capita was US$506. This compares unfavourably with countries such as Bangladesh ($706); China at ($5439); Ivory Coast ($1196); Philippines ($2370); Mongolia ($3060); and South Korea ($23067). UNdata. Accessed 19 September 2014.

34 DPRK Central Bureau of Statistics, 2008 DPRK Korea Population Census National Report. Accessed 14 July 2014.

35 Sanghyuk S. Shin, Ricky Y. Choi, and Thomas E. Novotny, ‘Economic sanctions towards North Korea’, BMJ, vol. 339, 2009; Justin McCurry, ‘North Korea's Health System in Disarray’, op. cit.

36 David Wogan, ‘How North Korea Fuels its Military Trucks with Trees’, Scientific American, 2 January 2013. Accessed 14 July 2014.

37 Robert Pape, ‘Why Economic Sanctions Do Not Work’, International Security, vol. 22., no. 2, pp. 107. See also, Rüdiger Frank, Asian Perspective, vol. 30, no. 3, 2006, pp. 5-36.

38 Brendan Taylor, American Sanctions in the Asia Pacific, London and New York, Routledge, 2010, pp. 27-28.

39 UN - Report of the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Accessed 14 July 2014.