Between Defector and Migrant: Identities and Strategies of North Koreans in South Korea

This article examines the structural conditions and the individual strategies of North Koreans in South Korea. It provides a historical account on the changing social definitions of and policies toward North Korean border-crossers and how the changing conditions have affected their identities and lives. It also gives an ethnographic account of the difficulties and risks of individuals whose identities are caught between “defector” and “migrant.” The problems they face in capitalist South Korea are examined in the major areas of social transition—arrival, orientation, residence, consumption, work, education, and ideology—focusing on individual strategies that negotiate cultural differences between the two Koreas.