Sense of place of North Korean youth defectors

• In Event: Poster session III
  In Poster Session: Poster session 3

Proposal

Drawing upon pedagogy of place, this study examines what a sense of place consists of for North Korean youth defectors(NKYD). In particular, we look into cases of tensioned sense of place which can guide us to better understand (taken for granted) conditions and/or expectations that shape and support the youth’ sense of place development i.e., participation in their new place. We try to understand in what ways NKYDs experience tensions in sense of place and to describe tensioned nature of their sense of place. As Gruenedwald (2003) articulated, “place foregrounds a narrative of local and regional politics that is attuned to the particularities of where people actually live, and that is connected to global development trends that impact local places”(p. 3). Thus, to frame youth sense of place stories expansively and connectively, linking a “place to places beyond” (Massey, 1991), it is critical to seek out and address decolonization (historicity) and reinhabitation (positionality) in their stories (Gruenedwald, 2003). Drawing upon positionality theory which defines identities as complicated, dynamic, and contextually bound, it employs positionality as an analytic lens i.e., “situatedness of identity” (Kezar & Lester, 2010). It was carried out with 10 informants who attend the Crossroad School, an alternative high school, established to serve NKYDs in South Korea employing ethnographic methods of data generation and analysis (Kusenbach, 2003; Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Analysis shows that that both temporality (historicity) and spatiality (positionality) are constantly in interaction to frame youth place experiences as a cyclic and continuous process between two aspects of “who I am in a place” and “how I live where I am”. Based on our preliminary findings, we have learned that there are four conditions that affect youth’ sense of place development: 1) leveraging place history (continuity of activities and cultural repertoire), 2) place knowing (familiarity with the setting and understanding), 3) place competency (knowing how to navigate and knowing how to engage in a place), and 4) developmental trajectory (imagined continuity of place identity). Stories show that when these components are ill-supported or limited, tensions emerged in their sense of place and their positionality became diminished. Further by examining internal conditions of their diminished positionalities, we discuss how the youth managed to cope with and opted for ways to manage the inconsistencies and tensions that emerged in this new place; 1) revealing vs. hiding one’s place history, 2) resisting vs. mimicking dominant place identity, and 3) feeling alienated vs. seeking a safe community. In short, the findings underline that educational efforts for NKYDs need to consider 1) how historicity (place history and place identity) is constantly in action when the youth participate in a (new) place and 2) how youth positionality is purposeful, selective (i.e., patchworks), and dialectical between “hereness” and “thereness.” The study can bring the attention to the expansive and connective nature of sense of place or “a global sense of place” (Massey, 1991) which addresses local-global, past-present, this place-places beyond relationships that are embedded within the ecological network.

Author

• miyoun lim, Ewha Womans University