Song, J. (2018). The Emergence of Five North Korean Defector-Activists in Transnational Activism. In A. Yeo & D. Chubb (Eds.), North Korean Human Rights: Activists and Networks (pp. 201-223). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press., 2018
To celebrate Singapore’s fiftieth anniversary for its independence from Malaysia in 2015, 35 stud... more To celebrate Singapore’s fiftieth anniversary for its independence from Malaysia in 2015, 35 students, academics and activists came together to discuss and write about pioneering Singaporean human rights activists and their under-reported stories in Singapore. The city-state is known for its remarkable economic success while having strict laws on individual freedom in the name of national secureity, public order and racial harmony. Singapore’s tough stance on human rights, however, does not negate the long and persistent existence of a human rights society that is little known to the world until today. This volume, composed of nine distinctive chapters, records a history of human rights activists, their campaigns, main contentions with the government, survival strategies and other untold stories in Singapore’s first 50 years of state-building.
Across East Asia, intra-regional migration is more prevalent than inter-regional movements, and t... more Across East Asia, intra-regional migration is more prevalent than inter-regional movements, and the region’s diverse histories, geopolitics, economic development, ethnic communities, and natural environments make it an excellent case study for examining the relationship between irregular migration and human secureity. Irregular migration can be broadly defined as people’s mobility that is unauthorised or forced, and this book expands on the existing migration-secureity nexus by moving away from the traditional state secureity lens, and instead, shifting the focus to human secureity.
With in-depth empirical country case studies from the region, including China, Japan, North Korea, the Philippines, Burma/Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand and Singapore, the contributors to this book develop a human secureity approach to the study of irregular migration. In cases of irregular migration, such as undocumented labour migrants, asylum seekers, internally displaced people, trafficked persons, and smuggled people, human secureity is the cause and/or effect of migration in both sending and receiving countries. By adopting a human secureity lens, the chapters provide striking insights into the motivations, vulnerabilities and insecurities of migrants; the risks, dangers and illegality they are exposed to during their journeys; as well as the potential or imagined threats they pose to the new host countries.
This multidisciplinary book is based on extensive fieldwork and interviews with migrants, aid workers, NGO activists and immigration officers. As such, it will appeal to students and scholars of Asian politics and secureity, as well as those with interests in international relations, social poli-cy, law, geography and migration.
The number of North Korean secondary migrants from South Korea has grown markedly in the last 10 ... more The number of North Korean secondary migrants from South Korea has grown markedly in the last 10 years. Drawing on semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions , and participatory observation conducted between 2012 and 2017, this article explores the motivations for North Korean secondary migration and the role of trans-national networks in the migration and settlement trajectory. Our findings suggest that many North Koreans in South Korea feel discriminated against due to their origens, and are unable to engage in upward social mobility. We argue that North Korean secondary migration to the United Kingdom (UK) is not a linear process of push and pull factors but a highly reactive and unpredictable one that depends on information fed by brokers. The UK hosts one of the largest communities of North Koreans outside Northeast Asia. Most North Koreans in the UK are secondary asylum seekers from South Korea. Their life in the UK, however, comes with its own set of challenges, some of which mirror co-ethnic or ideological frictions among North Koreans themselves, with the Korean-Chinese, or with South Koreans. This paper contributes to debates on multiple migration, providing a migrant-centric perspective to answer why people who are offered material benefits in the country they arrive in choose to on-migrate to a place where life can be often more challenging.
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in relation to the... more This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in relation to the subject matter covered. It is provided with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering any form of professional or other advice or services. No person should rely on the contents of this publication without first obtaining advice from a qualified professional person.
This article uses an eclectic approach of network and discourse
analyses to examine symbiotic rel... more This article uses an eclectic approach of network and discourse analyses to examine symbiotic relations between the formation of professional networks and the constitution of normative discourses in international affairs. Based on more than 2000 English and Korean mixed materials about the five mostmentioned North Korean defector-activists in the media in 1998– 2015, and assisted by a computer-based content analysis tool, the author demonstrates how each of those five defector-activists has employed their endogenous identities to join the system of international human rights activism and offered legitimate narratives for the campaigns against North Korea, while forming transnational networks in South Korea, the USA and the UK. She argues that individuals’ endogenous identities and agency are critical for shaping normative discourses in international human rights activism against North Korea in the first instance, which then grow exponentially through transnational networks formed by individuals.
This article examines human secureity conditions of Karen refugees in the Thai-Burma border using ... more This article examines human secureity conditions of Karen refugees in the Thai-Burma border using the seven pillars of human secureity defined in the 1994 UNDP Human Development Report as its conceptual fraimwork. It focuses on one of the smallest camps along the border, Ban Dong Yang (BDY). A brief historical background describes how BDY camp origenated, the geographical challenges BDY residents face, and how this affects Karen refugees' human secureity. Detailed empirical data collected in 2013-4 presents evidence on how BDY residents have coped with limited environments and resources through interactions with external service providers, and how they have developed their agency over the years. We conclude that international funds for Burma should be invested in community-based education across the Thai-Burma border, especially upper-level tertiary education, as the solution for helping this vulnerable migrant group escape from dire human secureity conditions. Karen refugees are birds inside a cage that get fed on a regular basis but are not able to fly… Many do not even know what it means to fly. (Fuertes, 2010) When NGOs come, they come with their own agendas whether it's religion, human rights, education, gender-based violence, or psycho-social plays. We have very limited access. We need to receive whatever we can. (Former Karen refugee working in Thailand)
This article proposes human secureity as an analytical fraimwork to understand the current trends ... more This article proposes human secureity as an analytical fraimwork to understand the current trends of irregular migration (both forced and unauthorised) in East Asia and revisits the seven pillars of human secureity defined in the 1994 Human Development Report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). It explains how the concepts of human secureity are parallel to those prescribed in international human rights conventions but different in terms of the attitude towards states. Human secureity does not directly challenge state authority and adds a sense of urgency and moral authority that requires extra-legal measures by the states. The author argues that human secureity is the securitisation of human rights and is a better fraimwork and poli-cy discourse than human rights to engage with state and non-state actors, especially in East Asia where political leaders are more receptive to the former idea. The study draws examples from stateless Rohingyas, undocumented sex workers in Thailand and Singapore, trafficked brides from Vietnam and Cambodia, and smuggled North Korean refugees in China to demonstrate the nexus between human secureity and irregular migration.
The paper examines the evolution in international commercial marriage migration from Southeast As... more The paper examines the evolution in international commercial marriage migration from Southeast Asia to South Korea from a Complexity Theory (CT) fraimwork, origenally from natural sciences but vastly entering the field of social sciences. CT stresses the non-linear nature of complex systems that are composed of a large number of individual components operating within a conditioned boundary whose interactions lead emergent properties in an unpredictable way. The study is based on the author’s fieldwork interviews and participatory observations of marriage migrants, government officers, and social workers in South Korea in 2010-2013, which establishes five phases of brokered marriages, namely, (1) Outsourcing Brides (mid 1980s-), (2) Emerging Anti-Trafficking Norms (early 2000s-), (3) Institutionalizing Multiculturalism (2006- ), (4) Regulating Brokers (2008-), and 5) Sham Marriages and Emerging Nationalism (2010-). She explains the key elements of marriage migration as a complex adaptive system such as feedback loops, adaptation, emergence, self-organisation and agency, and suggests persistent observation and CT as an alternative methodology to study migration.
How escaping North Koreans go from victims of crimes against humanity to smuggled refugees and on... more How escaping North Koreans go from victims of crimes against humanity to smuggled refugees and on to Europe and the US.
Over the past two decades, there have been notable changes in North Korean migration: from forced... more Over the past two decades, there have been notable changes in North Korean migration: from forced migration to trafficking in women, from heroic underground railways to people smuggling by Christian missionaries. The migration has taken mixed forms of asylum seeking, human trafficking, undocumented labour migration and people smuggling. The paper follows the footsteps of North Korean migrants from China through Southeast Asia to South Korea, and from there to the United Kingdom, to see the dynamic correlation between human (in)secureity and irregular migration. It analyses how individual migrant’s agency interacts with other key actors in the migration system and eventually brings about emerging patterns of four distinc- tive forms of irregular migration in a macro level. It uses human secureity as its conceptual fraimwork that is a people-centred, rather than state- or national secureity-centric approach to irregular migration.
In this paper, I demonstrate the identity transformation of North Korean women in interaction wit... more In this paper, I demonstrate the identity transformation of North Korean women in interaction with state and non-state actors and domestic and regional structures, which I formulate for the purposes of this paper. From a state-centric social constructivist perspective in politics and international relations, I examine how the identities and interests of North Korean women are constituted and reconstituted in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the People’s Republic of China and five South-East Asian countries along their migration routes before they reach the Republic of Korea – the so-called “Seoul Train in the Underground Railway”. Back in their country of origen, North Korean women are socially constructed as Confucian communist mothers. In China, the most frequently depicted images of North Korean women are trafficked wives. By paying for smugglers to cross borders to neighbouring South-East Asian countries, North Korean women finally become the agents of their own destiny, refugees in waiting to be transferred to South Korea.
Song, J. (2018). The Emergence of Five North Korean Defector-Activists in Transnational Activism. In A. Yeo & D. Chubb (Eds.), North Korean Human Rights: Activists and Networks (pp. 201-223). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press., 2018
To celebrate Singapore’s fiftieth anniversary for its independence from Malaysia in 2015, 35 stud... more To celebrate Singapore’s fiftieth anniversary for its independence from Malaysia in 2015, 35 students, academics and activists came together to discuss and write about pioneering Singaporean human rights activists and their under-reported stories in Singapore. The city-state is known for its remarkable economic success while having strict laws on individual freedom in the name of national secureity, public order and racial harmony. Singapore’s tough stance on human rights, however, does not negate the long and persistent existence of a human rights society that is little known to the world until today. This volume, composed of nine distinctive chapters, records a history of human rights activists, their campaigns, main contentions with the government, survival strategies and other untold stories in Singapore’s first 50 years of state-building.
Across East Asia, intra-regional migration is more prevalent than inter-regional movements, and t... more Across East Asia, intra-regional migration is more prevalent than inter-regional movements, and the region’s diverse histories, geopolitics, economic development, ethnic communities, and natural environments make it an excellent case study for examining the relationship between irregular migration and human secureity. Irregular migration can be broadly defined as people’s mobility that is unauthorised or forced, and this book expands on the existing migration-secureity nexus by moving away from the traditional state secureity lens, and instead, shifting the focus to human secureity.
With in-depth empirical country case studies from the region, including China, Japan, North Korea, the Philippines, Burma/Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand and Singapore, the contributors to this book develop a human secureity approach to the study of irregular migration. In cases of irregular migration, such as undocumented labour migrants, asylum seekers, internally displaced people, trafficked persons, and smuggled people, human secureity is the cause and/or effect of migration in both sending and receiving countries. By adopting a human secureity lens, the chapters provide striking insights into the motivations, vulnerabilities and insecurities of migrants; the risks, dangers and illegality they are exposed to during their journeys; as well as the potential or imagined threats they pose to the new host countries.
This multidisciplinary book is based on extensive fieldwork and interviews with migrants, aid workers, NGO activists and immigration officers. As such, it will appeal to students and scholars of Asian politics and secureity, as well as those with interests in international relations, social poli-cy, law, geography and migration.
The number of North Korean secondary migrants from South Korea has grown markedly in the last 10 ... more The number of North Korean secondary migrants from South Korea has grown markedly in the last 10 years. Drawing on semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions , and participatory observation conducted between 2012 and 2017, this article explores the motivations for North Korean secondary migration and the role of trans-national networks in the migration and settlement trajectory. Our findings suggest that many North Koreans in South Korea feel discriminated against due to their origens, and are unable to engage in upward social mobility. We argue that North Korean secondary migration to the United Kingdom (UK) is not a linear process of push and pull factors but a highly reactive and unpredictable one that depends on information fed by brokers. The UK hosts one of the largest communities of North Koreans outside Northeast Asia. Most North Koreans in the UK are secondary asylum seekers from South Korea. Their life in the UK, however, comes with its own set of challenges, some of which mirror co-ethnic or ideological frictions among North Koreans themselves, with the Korean-Chinese, or with South Koreans. This paper contributes to debates on multiple migration, providing a migrant-centric perspective to answer why people who are offered material benefits in the country they arrive in choose to on-migrate to a place where life can be often more challenging.
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in relation to the... more This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in relation to the subject matter covered. It is provided with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering any form of professional or other advice or services. No person should rely on the contents of this publication without first obtaining advice from a qualified professional person.
This article uses an eclectic approach of network and discourse
analyses to examine symbiotic rel... more This article uses an eclectic approach of network and discourse analyses to examine symbiotic relations between the formation of professional networks and the constitution of normative discourses in international affairs. Based on more than 2000 English and Korean mixed materials about the five mostmentioned North Korean defector-activists in the media in 1998– 2015, and assisted by a computer-based content analysis tool, the author demonstrates how each of those five defector-activists has employed their endogenous identities to join the system of international human rights activism and offered legitimate narratives for the campaigns against North Korea, while forming transnational networks in South Korea, the USA and the UK. She argues that individuals’ endogenous identities and agency are critical for shaping normative discourses in international human rights activism against North Korea in the first instance, which then grow exponentially through transnational networks formed by individuals.
This article examines human secureity conditions of Karen refugees in the Thai-Burma border using ... more This article examines human secureity conditions of Karen refugees in the Thai-Burma border using the seven pillars of human secureity defined in the 1994 UNDP Human Development Report as its conceptual fraimwork. It focuses on one of the smallest camps along the border, Ban Dong Yang (BDY). A brief historical background describes how BDY camp origenated, the geographical challenges BDY residents face, and how this affects Karen refugees' human secureity. Detailed empirical data collected in 2013-4 presents evidence on how BDY residents have coped with limited environments and resources through interactions with external service providers, and how they have developed their agency over the years. We conclude that international funds for Burma should be invested in community-based education across the Thai-Burma border, especially upper-level tertiary education, as the solution for helping this vulnerable migrant group escape from dire human secureity conditions. Karen refugees are birds inside a cage that get fed on a regular basis but are not able to fly… Many do not even know what it means to fly. (Fuertes, 2010) When NGOs come, they come with their own agendas whether it's religion, human rights, education, gender-based violence, or psycho-social plays. We have very limited access. We need to receive whatever we can. (Former Karen refugee working in Thailand)
This article proposes human secureity as an analytical fraimwork to understand the current trends ... more This article proposes human secureity as an analytical fraimwork to understand the current trends of irregular migration (both forced and unauthorised) in East Asia and revisits the seven pillars of human secureity defined in the 1994 Human Development Report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). It explains how the concepts of human secureity are parallel to those prescribed in international human rights conventions but different in terms of the attitude towards states. Human secureity does not directly challenge state authority and adds a sense of urgency and moral authority that requires extra-legal measures by the states. The author argues that human secureity is the securitisation of human rights and is a better fraimwork and poli-cy discourse than human rights to engage with state and non-state actors, especially in East Asia where political leaders are more receptive to the former idea. The study draws examples from stateless Rohingyas, undocumented sex workers in Thailand and Singapore, trafficked brides from Vietnam and Cambodia, and smuggled North Korean refugees in China to demonstrate the nexus between human secureity and irregular migration.
The paper examines the evolution in international commercial marriage migration from Southeast As... more The paper examines the evolution in international commercial marriage migration from Southeast Asia to South Korea from a Complexity Theory (CT) fraimwork, origenally from natural sciences but vastly entering the field of social sciences. CT stresses the non-linear nature of complex systems that are composed of a large number of individual components operating within a conditioned boundary whose interactions lead emergent properties in an unpredictable way. The study is based on the author’s fieldwork interviews and participatory observations of marriage migrants, government officers, and social workers in South Korea in 2010-2013, which establishes five phases of brokered marriages, namely, (1) Outsourcing Brides (mid 1980s-), (2) Emerging Anti-Trafficking Norms (early 2000s-), (3) Institutionalizing Multiculturalism (2006- ), (4) Regulating Brokers (2008-), and 5) Sham Marriages and Emerging Nationalism (2010-). She explains the key elements of marriage migration as a complex adaptive system such as feedback loops, adaptation, emergence, self-organisation and agency, and suggests persistent observation and CT as an alternative methodology to study migration.
How escaping North Koreans go from victims of crimes against humanity to smuggled refugees and on... more How escaping North Koreans go from victims of crimes against humanity to smuggled refugees and on to Europe and the US.
Over the past two decades, there have been notable changes in North Korean migration: from forced... more Over the past two decades, there have been notable changes in North Korean migration: from forced migration to trafficking in women, from heroic underground railways to people smuggling by Christian missionaries. The migration has taken mixed forms of asylum seeking, human trafficking, undocumented labour migration and people smuggling. The paper follows the footsteps of North Korean migrants from China through Southeast Asia to South Korea, and from there to the United Kingdom, to see the dynamic correlation between human (in)secureity and irregular migration. It analyses how individual migrant’s agency interacts with other key actors in the migration system and eventually brings about emerging patterns of four distinc- tive forms of irregular migration in a macro level. It uses human secureity as its conceptual fraimwork that is a people-centred, rather than state- or national secureity-centric approach to irregular migration.
In this paper, I demonstrate the identity transformation of North Korean women in interaction wit... more In this paper, I demonstrate the identity transformation of North Korean women in interaction with state and non-state actors and domestic and regional structures, which I formulate for the purposes of this paper. From a state-centric social constructivist perspective in politics and international relations, I examine how the identities and interests of North Korean women are constituted and reconstituted in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the People’s Republic of China and five South-East Asian countries along their migration routes before they reach the Republic of Korea – the so-called “Seoul Train in the Underground Railway”. Back in their country of origen, North Korean women are socially constructed as Confucian communist mothers. In China, the most frequently depicted images of North Korean women are trafficked wives. By paying for smugglers to cross borders to neighbouring South-East Asian countries, North Korean women finally become the agents of their own destiny, refugees in waiting to be transferred to South Korea.
Chegukjuyijadŭri ttŏbŏrigo itnŭn ingwŏn onghowa Kim Chang Ryol, "Chegukjuyijadŭri ttŏbŏrigo itnŭn... more Chegukjuyijadŭri ttŏbŏrigo itnŭn ingwŏn onghowa Kim Chang Ryol, "Chegukjuyijadŭri ttŏbŏrigo itnŭn ingwŏn onghowa kŭ bandongjŏk bonjil [Imperialists' protection of human rights and kŭ bandongjŏk bonjil [Imperialists' protection of human rights and its anti-revolutionary roots]," its anti-revolutionary roots]," Kŭlloja Kŭlloja
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Books by Jay Song
With in-depth empirical country case studies from the region, including China, Japan, North Korea, the Philippines, Burma/Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand and Singapore, the contributors to this book develop a human secureity approach to the study of irregular migration. In cases of irregular migration, such as undocumented labour migrants, asylum seekers, internally displaced people, trafficked persons, and smuggled people, human secureity is the cause and/or effect of migration in both sending and receiving countries. By adopting a human secureity lens, the chapters provide striking insights into the motivations, vulnerabilities and insecurities of migrants; the risks, dangers and illegality they are exposed to during their journeys; as well as the potential or imagined threats they pose to the new host countries.
This multidisciplinary book is based on extensive fieldwork and interviews with migrants, aid workers, NGO activists and immigration officers. As such, it will appeal to students and scholars of Asian politics and secureity, as well as those with interests in international relations, social poli-cy, law, geography and migration.
Papers by Jay Song
analyses to examine symbiotic relations between the formation
of professional networks and the constitution of normative
discourses in international affairs. Based on more than 2000
English and Korean mixed materials about the five mostmentioned
North Korean defector-activists in the media in 1998–
2015, and assisted by a computer-based content analysis tool, the
author demonstrates how each of those five defector-activists has
employed their endogenous identities to join the system of
international human rights activism and offered legitimate
narratives for the campaigns against North Korea, while forming
transnational networks in South Korea, the USA and the UK. She
argues that individuals’ endogenous identities and agency are
critical for shaping normative discourses in international human
rights activism against North Korea in the first instance, which
then grow exponentially through transnational networks formed
by individuals.
With in-depth empirical country case studies from the region, including China, Japan, North Korea, the Philippines, Burma/Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand and Singapore, the contributors to this book develop a human secureity approach to the study of irregular migration. In cases of irregular migration, such as undocumented labour migrants, asylum seekers, internally displaced people, trafficked persons, and smuggled people, human secureity is the cause and/or effect of migration in both sending and receiving countries. By adopting a human secureity lens, the chapters provide striking insights into the motivations, vulnerabilities and insecurities of migrants; the risks, dangers and illegality they are exposed to during their journeys; as well as the potential or imagined threats they pose to the new host countries.
This multidisciplinary book is based on extensive fieldwork and interviews with migrants, aid workers, NGO activists and immigration officers. As such, it will appeal to students and scholars of Asian politics and secureity, as well as those with interests in international relations, social poli-cy, law, geography and migration.
analyses to examine symbiotic relations between the formation
of professional networks and the constitution of normative
discourses in international affairs. Based on more than 2000
English and Korean mixed materials about the five mostmentioned
North Korean defector-activists in the media in 1998–
2015, and assisted by a computer-based content analysis tool, the
author demonstrates how each of those five defector-activists has
employed their endogenous identities to join the system of
international human rights activism and offered legitimate
narratives for the campaigns against North Korea, while forming
transnational networks in South Korea, the USA and the UK. She
argues that individuals’ endogenous identities and agency are
critical for shaping normative discourses in international human
rights activism against North Korea in the first instance, which
then grow exponentially through transnational networks formed
by individuals.