Seminar: Sex, Drugs 'n Rock and Roll in North Korea

Join an exhibition of rare photographs capturing everyday life of North Koreans to be opened by Professor Bob Carr Bob Carr, Director of the UTS Australia China Relations Institute and a seminar featuring two internationally preeminent scholars in North Korean studies: Professor Andrei Lankov of Kookmin University, Professor Seok-Hyang Kim of Ewha Womans University; visiting students originally from North Korea and a panel of Australian experts to discuss North Korea’s quiet transformation.

Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘n Roll in North Korea

North Korea is often described as the world’s last Stalinist country, but this description is misleading in several important ways: the country is now an emerging market economy and undergoing significant cultural change. While the Stalinist facade remains, de facto private enterprises (ranging from small markets and private plots, all the way up to large pseudo-state coal mines and trading companies) have come to dominate the North Korean economy. The cultural landscape is also experiencing significant change. In this workshop the panel of experts, who conducted numerous interviews with North Koreans, will outline some of the key changes that are occurring in this country in transition. A particular focus will be directed to economic and social change, including changes in consumption patterns and the spread of popular culture. These issues will be discussed in the context of the emerging market economy. This workshop will also include presentations on the lives and rights of North Korean immigrants in Australia, and the depiction of North Korea by the Australian media.

The photo exhibition, at the same venue, presents never before seen images of daily life in North Korea captured by visiting scholars, aid workers and students.

Program

09:30-09:40am: Coffee and welcome (Dr Bronwen Dalton, Director Centre for Cosmopolitan Civil Societies)

09:40-10:00am: "Rock-n-Roll in North Korea: pop culture in North Korea” (Dr. Leonid Petrov)

10:00-10:30am: North Korea in the Ice Age: the spread of methamphetamine use and implications for North Korea (Prof. Andrei Lankov)

10:30-10:45am: Q & A Session

10:45-11:00am: Morning Tea Break

11:00-11:20am: Why more women leave North Korea more often: the push factors and the pull factors? (Prof. Seok-Hyang Kim) 

11:20am-12:00pm: Necessity is the mother of markets and markets need others: the role of women in the emerging capitalist economy (Dr Bronwen Dalton)

12:00-12:20am: When will the arduous journey end? Transmigration of North Koreans including lives of North Koreans in Australia (Dr. Kyung-Ja Jung and Prof. Kyungmook Kim and special North Korean guests – no photos of North Korean guests please)

12:20am-12:30pm: Closing Remarks (Mack Williams AO, Chair UTS:Insearch and former ambassador to South Korea)

12:30pm-1:00pm: “The Lives of Others: New Perspectives on North Korea” exhibition of photographs of everyday life in North Korea. Official opening by Professor Bob Carr Bob Carr, Director of the UTS Australia China Relations Institute

1:00pm: Complementary Lunch

 

The workshop is funded by the Australian Research Council and the University of Technology, Sydney’s Centre for Cosmopolitan Civil Societies (CCS), Toyota Foundation.

 

Prof. Andrei Lankov was born in 1963 in St. Petersburg. He completed his undergraduate and graduate studies at Leningrad State University (PhD in 1989). Between 1996 and 2004 he taught Korean history at the ANU, and since 2004 he has been teaching at Kookmin University in Seoul. His major English language publications on North Korea include: From Stalin to Kim Il Sung: The Formation of North Korea, 1945-1960 (Rutgers University Press, 2003); Crisis in North Korea: The Failure of De-Stalinization, 1956 (University of Hawaii Press, 2004), North of the DMZ: Essays on Daily Life in North Korea (McFarland and Company, 2007), The Real North Korea (Oxford University Press, 2013).

 

Prof. Seok-Hyang Kim worked at the Center for Unification of the ROK’s Ministry of Unification. Since 2005, she has been a Professor at the Department of North Korean Studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul.  Her research topics include the everyday life of ordinary people in North Korea and defectors’ lives after leaving North Korea. She has recently published: People from  Hyeryong, North Korea, Let  Others Know Their Own Stories. (Seoul: Kookmin University Press, 2013); ‘Study on the Consumption Trend Phenomenon in North Korea after 1990: Based on the Experiences of North Korean Defectors,’ in North Korean Studies Review (2012); and ‘Public and Private Discourse on Human Rights in North Korea,’ Ewha Journal of Social Science (2012).

 

Dr. Kyung-Ja Jung 's academic interests are grounded in and inspired by her involvement in women's activism in Australia and Korea. Her areas of expertise include women's movements, women's policy, North Korean female defectors, migrants, sex workers, and violence against women. Dr. Jung’s research has been published in academic journals (Hecate, Asian Survey, Asian Journal of Women’s Studies, and International Review of Korean Studies) and as book chapters in Women's Movements: Flourishing or in Abeyance (Routledge, 2008) and The Work of Policy: an International Survey (Lexington, 2006). She has also published a co-authored book Sex Trafficking or Shadow Tourism? (Lambert Academic Publishing, 2010). Her most recent book Practicing Feminism in South Korea: Sexual Violence and the Women’s Movement (Routledge, 2013).

 

Dr. Bronwen Dalton Bronwen is the Director of the UTS Centre for Cosmopolitan Civil Societies and the Coordinator of the Masters of Community Management Program at the University of Technology, Sydney and Chair, Australian and New Zealand Third Sector Researchers. Bronwen completed her DPhil at the University of Oxford, where she was awarded the Oxford University Larkinson Award for Social Studies and was the recipient of the British Vice-Chancellors Committee Overseas Research Scholarship and the Korea Foundation Scholarship. Bronwen also has a BA from the Australian National University and a MA from Yonsei University, Korea. She is on the Boards of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs’ Australia Korea Foundation. Dr. Dalton has conducted extensive research in the field of North Korean Studies and published a number of journal articles on North Korea and with Dr. Kyung-Ja Jung, she co-authored the book Sex Trafficking or Shadow Tourism? (Lambert Academic Publishing, 2010).

 

Dr Leonid Petrov graduated from the Department of Oriental Studies, St. Petersburg State University in 1994, where he majored in Korean History and Language. Between 2003 and 2007, Dr. Petrov taught Korean History at the Intercultural Institute of California in San Francisco, and Korean Economy at Keimyung University in Daegu; he acted as Chair of Korean Studies at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po) in France. Between 2009 and 2012, he taught Korean History and Language at the University of Sydney. Currently, Dr. Petrov teaches Cross-cultural Management and other business-related courses at the International College of Management, Sydney. He is also a visiting fellow at the Australian National University.