Methodological encounters and challenges at the “abandoned” Korean Demilitarised Zone (DMZ)

Abstract

One of the last living vestiges of the Cold War, the Korean Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) continues to constitute the world’s most hermetically sealed border, acting as both a physical barrier and a symbol of the political rifts which continue to divide North and South Korea. As a result, the space of the DMZ is often framed as a stagnant “no-man’s land” which makes insulation possible between the two countries, guaranteeing their respective sovereignties and forming a buffer against hostilities. In other words, the Inter-Korean borderland is thought to be dominated by the juridico-political prisms of both exclusion and abandonment which other buffer zones around the world are similarly defined by (Leshem and Pinkerton, 2016). However, my research project seeks to complicate these narratives of the DMZ as a simple divide or negative space, instead charting the natural, cultural, technical, and political entanglements which occur within and across the zone. Employing a voluminous approach and, in particular, one which accounts for the things (both human and more-than-human) which “fill” these volumes (Adey, 2013; Squire, 2017), my proposed contribution seeks to challenge the ideas of abandonment, posing the questions: abandonment by whom and for whom? Moreover, by drawing upon my ongoing fieldwork at the DMZ, I hope to reflect upon the methodological difficulties of working with “abandoned” spaces and their more-than-human inhabitants. Highlighting the issues around accessing such spaces, I outline alternative creative and innovative methods which might be deployed to overcome such restrictions, as well as the new and conceptually rich insights they provide into these landscapes of abandonment.

Bibliography

Adey, Peter. “Security atmospheres or the crystallisation of worlds.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 32, no. 5 (2014): 834-851.

Leshem, Noam, and Alasdair Pinkerton. “Re‐inhabiting no‐man’s land: genealogies, political life and critical agendas.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 41, no. 1 (2016): 41-53.

Squire, Rachael. “Do you dive?”: Methodological considerations for engaging with “volume.” Geography Compass 11, No. 7 (2017).