Actualité de Valérie Gelézeau: Communication scientifique « Walking along the DMZ Peace Trail as object-method to reconsider post-traumatic space in the South Korean border zone »

Abstract:

Since 1953, the inter-Korean border, the current frontier of an unfinished war (Cumings 2010), can be analyzed as a « meta-border » (Gelézeau 2020) that exists beyond the time of its creation and beyond its physical location along the 38th parallel. Still active like a terrestrial fault line, this « meta-border » created discontinuities at all levels of both Korean societies (divided families, the issue of former North Koreans settled in the South, or diasporic communities). Along the DMZ, in the so-called chŏpkyŏng chiyŏk (Korean border zone), which includes many rural counties, towns, and cities in Gyeonggi and Gangweon provinces, apparent discontinuities stem from the post-traumatic history of the war and are linked to both spatial constraints (border security) and tourism development (memory of war & division), mixing challenges and opportunities for residents.

This paper builds on recent research protocols established to document social life in such post-traumatic spaces (Sophie Houdart on post-Fukushima studies, Houdart 2020). It presents the first results of my new research, which uses walking along the entire 34 courses of the DMZ Peace Trail, recently opened in 2024, as a means of reintroducing continuity into the analysis of a discontinuous space such as the South Korean chŏpkyŏng chiyŏk.

The walking and mobile survey carried out along the way, which allowed for many encounters with different actors and inhabitants, opens up new ways of questioning the geographical dynamics and life along the lines in border areas (rural/urban gap, border security, development of memorial tourism, etc.) and could be applied to the study of numerous other discontinuous contexts.

Cette communication faisait partie du panel « Walking as Object-Method in Korean Studies – Modeling Future Trends for Conducting Fieldwork in the Social Sciences », avec également:

– Youna SON (EHESS): Walking Empowerment: Civil Society and the Making of Paths
– JO Minji (Catholic University of Korea): Walking Mobilization: The Politics of the “Walking Movement” during the 1960s to 1990s
– LEE Daeun (National University of Singapore): Walking with the Moving Fieldsite: Doing Mobile Ethnography in Digital Nomad Research.
– Margot KUNZ (IFG French Institute of Geopolitics): Virtual Walking as an Experience of Contemporary Hybrid Urban Space: The Case of « Walk in Seoul » YouTube Videos.