TITLE: Dialectics of Labor: Working in Postwar North Korea
SPEAKER: Cheehyung Harrison Kim
DATE: Tuesday. May 10, 2022. 7:30PM (Seoul)
SUMMARY:
In search of national unity and bureaucratic order in the decade following the Korean War, the North Korean state turned to labor.
Even more than coercion or violence, work was crucial to state control. Industrial labor was both mode of production and mode of governance, characterized by repetitive work, mass mobilization, labor heroes, and the insistence on convergence between living and working.
At the same time, workers challenged and reconfigured state power to accommodate their circumstances—coming late to work, switching jobs, fighting with bosses, and following approved paths to secure their livelihood, resolve conflict, and find happiness.
BIO:
Cheehyung Harrison Kim is an associate professor in the Department of History at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. His research and teaching focus on socialism, labor, industrialism, everyday life, and urbanism in the context of East Asia and North Korea. He is the author of Heroes and Toilers: Work as Life in Postwar North Korea, 1953-1961 (Columbia University Press, 2018).
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Cheehyung Harrison Kim (Univ. of Hawai'i at Mānoa) will give a talk on May 11 (Wednesday) 2pm Korea (5am UK / 1am EST) on “Working in Postwar North Korea: State Practice and Dialectics”. Join us!
Zoom: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87297224736... (ID: 872 9722 4736/ Password: 478016)
Moderator: Vladimir Tikhonov (Univ. of Oslo)
Cheehyung Harrison Kim is an associate professor in the Department of History at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. His research and teaching focus on socialism, labor, industrialism, everyday life, and urbanism in the context of East Asia and North Korea. He is the author of Heroes and Toilers: Work as Life in Postwar North Korea, 1953-1961, which was published by Columbia University Press in 2018.
<Abstract>
“Working in Postwar North Korea: State Practice and Dialectics”
In search of national unity and bureaucratic order in the decade following the Korean War, the North Korean state turned to labor. Even more than coercion or violence, work was crucial to state control. Industrial labor was both mode of production and mode of governance, characterized by repetitive work, mass mobilization, labor heroes, and the insistence on convergence between living and working. At the same time, workers challenged and reconfigured state power to accommodate their circumstances—coming late to work, switching jobs, and fighting with bosses, as well as following approved paths to secure their livelihood, resolve conflict, and find happiness.
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