Abstract
The Korean Peninsula has been suspended in an ongoing Cold War since Second World War. Within South Korea, people are starting to come out about their experiences of mass trauma stemming from the Cold War. This chapter focuses on indigenous spiritual rituals as spaces where such traumas are shared to “deideolize” the myth of American protection (Rivera, Concepts of liberation psychology. In: Comas-Diaz L, Rivera ET (eds) Liberation psychology: theory, method, practice, and social justice. American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000198-000, 2020, p. 46). Micro-level, sacred ceremonies have a coalescing nature to transform traumatized and estranged people to form new social subjectivities and work towards needed change. This chapter will consider ceremonies that address a massacre known as the “April Third Incident” and the effects that ritual participation has on demilitarization movements in South Korea and beyond. To honor these subaltern experiences, I recognize “April Third” ceremonies as indigenous technologies that mobilize the oppressed to self-advocate and help traumatized communities find their healing journey back to their ancestral homes. This chapter may also cause settlers outside of Korea to reflect on how our historical dislocations helps to prolong the Cold War and disconnect related struggles with people of color in the diaspora.
1Funding for this research was generously provided by the Korea Foundation: KF Ref.: 1022000-003867.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Abbreviations
- DMZ:
-
demilitarized zone
- Mt. Halla:
-
Halla Mountain
- 38th Parallel:
-
Global latitudinal 38° N used to divide northern and southern Korea
- GI:
-
originally abbreviated to mean “government issue,” but used colloquially to mean U.S. military personnel.
- USO:
-
United Service Organization that provides entertainment, social facilities, and other programs for the U.S. Armed Forces.
- NPO:
-
non-profit organization
- GNP:
-
gross national product
- BIPOC:
-
Black, Indigenous, People of Color
References
Ballantyne, T. (2022). The persistence of the gods: Religion in the modern world. In A. Burton & T. Ballentyne (Eds.), World histories from below: Disruption and dissent, 1750–the present (2nd ed., pp. 161–192). Bloomsbury Academic.
Chapman, W. (1977, November 27). South Korea: Low pay, long hours. The Washington Post. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1977/11/27/south-korea-low-pay-long-hours/84064176-45e8-4aaa-be14-98daf02ebeb5/
Chin, H. (2014, March 24). Jeju’s progress toward island of world peace. The Jeju Weekly. Available at: http://www.jejuweekly.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=3918
Cho, G. (2008). Haunting the Korean diaspora: Shame, secrecy, and the forgotten war. University of Minnesota Press.
Cumings, B. (1997). Korea’s place in the sun: A modern history. W.W. Norton.
Deo, M., et al. (2008). Missing in action: “Framing” race on prime-time television. Social Justice, 35(2), 145–162.
Dittmar, L., & Michaud, G. (2000). From Hanoi to Hollywood: The Vietnam war in American film (3rd ed.). Rutgers University Press.
Doolan, Y. (2021, October). The camptown origins of international adoption and the hypersexualization of Korean children. Journal of Asian American Studies, 24(3), 351–382.
Falola, T. (2020). Ritual archives. In N. Wariboko & T. Falola (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of African social ethics (pp. 473–497). Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36490-8_27
Hwang, M. C., & Salazar Parrenas, R. (2021, August). The gendered racialization of Asian women as villainous temptresses. Gender & Society, 35(4), 567–576.
Iseke, J. (2013). Spirituality as decolonizing: Elders Albert Desjarlais, George McDermott, and Tom McCallum share understandings of life in healing practices. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 2(1), 35–54. Available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0
Jeju 4.3 Peace Foundation. (2014). The Jeju 4.3 incident investigation report (Jeju National University, Trans.). Jeju 4.3 Peace Foundation.
Jeju Tourism Organization. The legend of Jeju’s origin. Available at: https://www.ijto.or.kr/english/index.php?cid=17
Kane, T. (2006, May 24). Global U.S. troop deployment, 1950–2005. The Heritage Foundation. Available at: https://www.heritage.org/defense/report/global-us-troop-deployment-1950-2005
Kim, S. (2000). Mourning Korean modernity in the memory of the Cheju April third incident. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 1(3), 461–476.
Kim, S. (2004). Shamanic epics and narrative construction of identity on Cheju Island. Asian Folklore Studies, 63, 57–73.
Kim, H. (2005, April 5). Death at the massacre site; unravelling the earth. Cheju Today. Available at: http://www.ijejutoday.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=12018
Kim, J. (2005). Forgotten Warriors. [Film]. Seoul, South Korea: PURN Productions.
Kim, S. (2013). The work of memory: Ritual laments of the dead and Korea’s Cheju massacre. In J. Boddy & M. Lambeck (Eds.), A companion to the anthropology of religion (1st ed., pp. 224–238). Wiley.
Kister, D. (1997). Korean shamanist ritual: Symbols and dramas of transformation. : Jain Publishing Company, Inc.
Klein, C. (2003). Cold war orientalism: Asia in the middlebrow imagination, 1945–1961. University of California Press.
Korean Ministry of Government Legislation. (Amended 2011, September 15). National security act number 11042. National Legal Information Center. Available at: https://www.law.go.kr/LSW/lsInfoP.do?efYd=20120701&lsiSeq=116750#0000
Kwon, T. (n.d.). Population change and development in Korea. Asia Society: Center for Global Education. Available at: https://asiasociety.org/education/population-change-and-development-korea#
Lee, J. (2010). Service economies: Militarism, sex work, and migrant labor in South Korea. University of Minnesota Press.
Lee, E., & Lee, P. K.. (2020, June 25). 70 years of separation: The families who remain divided by the Korean War. The Diplomat. Available at: https://thediplomat.com/2020/06/70-years-of-separation-the-families-who-remain-divided-by-the-korean-war/
Levine, B. (2000, June 21). For orphans of the Forgotten War, the past is shrouded in questions. Los Angeles Times. Available at: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-jun-21-cl-43067-story.html
McGinley, A. C. (2022, March). Misogyny and murder. Harvard Journal of Law & Gender, 45, 177–247.
Merrill, J. (1980). The Cheju-do rebellion. The Journal of Korean Studies, 2, 139–197.
Native Hope. Available at: https://www.nativehope.org/missing-and-murdered-indigenous-women-mmiw
O, M. (Director). (2012). Jiseul [Film]. Japari Films.
O’Connor, A., & Batalova, J. (2019, April 10). Korean immigrants in the United States. Migration Policy Institute. Available at: https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/korean-immigrants-united-states-2017
Oh, C. (2013). Afterward: Beyond taboo, toward healing. In Sun-i samch’on. (J. Lee, Trans., 2nd ed., pp. 163–172). Asia Publishers.
Our Elder Stories. (n.d.) Wesaketewenowuk: Roots growing up. In Sharing our Métis truths – One story at a time. Available at: https://ourelderstories.com/
Rivera, E. (2020). Concepts of liberation psychology. In L. Comas-Diaz & E. T. Rivera (Eds.), Liberation psychology: Theory, method, practice, and social justice (pp. 41–52). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000198-000
Rabinroff, J., & Yoo, K (2012, July 6). Plans for South Korean naval bases moving forward. In Stars and stripes. Defense Media Activity. Available at: https://www.stripes.com/theaters/asia_pacific/plans-for-south-korean-naval-bases-moving-forward-1.182252
Shim, E. (2015). North Korea denounces U.S. military presence on anniversary of Jeju uprising. United Press International. Available at: https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2015/04/03/North-Korea-denounces-US-military-presence-on-anniversary-of-Jeju-Uprising/9801428080551/
United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. (n.d.). Chapter 9-Amerasian immigrants. In Policy manual 7, Adjustment of status: Part p – Other adjustment programs. Available at: https://www.uscis.gov/policy-manual/volume-7-part-p-chapter-9
Verdery, K. (1999). The political lives of dead bodies: Reburial and postsocialist change. Columbia University Press.
Vine, D. (2020). Lists of U.S. military bases abroad, 1776–2021. American University Digital Research Archive. Available at: https://dra.american.edu/islandora/object/auislandora%3A94927
Wolfe, P. (1999). Settler colonialism and the transformation of anthropology: The politics and poetics of an ethnographic event. Cassell Publishing Company.
Yang, C. (2020). Jejueo: The language of Korea’s Jeju Island. University of Hawai’i Press.
Yoon, J. (2017, September 12). Victory over Communism: South Korean Protestants’ ideas about democracy, development, and dictatorship, 1953–1961. The Journal of American-East Asian Relations, 24(2/3), 233–258. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26549207
Young, M. (2001). Korea: The post-war war. History Workshop Journal, 51, 112–126.
Yuh, J. (2002). Beyond the shadow of camptown: Korean military brides in America. New York University Press.
Activism Websites
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hwang, M. (2023). The Liberatory Effects of Indigenous Ceremonies in the Aftermath of Mass Trauma. In: Sajjad, F.W. (eds) Peace as Liberation. Peace Psychology Book Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41965-2_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41965-2_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-41964-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-41965-2
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and PsychologyBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)