CAPAS RESEARCH PROJECT - Suzy Kim (Post)Apocalyptic Survival in the Global South: Community Adaptations against Catastrophes in North Korea
North Korea may be one of the world’s most apocalyptic states, whether as a nuclear threat or as a biopolitical regime par excellence. Rather than reproduce such tropes, this project examines community adaptations in the face of catastrophes at the intersection of geopolitics and biopolitics that result in a challenging paradox. In an era of dire emergencies from climate change to pandemics, survival in North Korea, as elsewhere, requires individuals to submit to the biopolitics of the state on the one hand, while strategies to meet basic needs must bypass the state altogether given the geopolitics of international sanctions. Previous scholarship has therefore focused on informal strategies of individual survival through underground markets and illicit cross-border trade. By contrast, this project examines formal community-level strategies through international cooperation and state support that prioritize local knowledges and experiences as key to collective survival. The project centers community adaptations to secure food production and public health developed through close cooperation between the North Korean Red Cross Society and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), using the IFRC archives, reports produced by UN agencies in North Korea, and North Korean publications. By exploring community resilience in the face of apocalyptic conditions, the project examines the biopolitics and geopolitics of survival and the lived experiences of communities grappling with the existential threats posed by multiple forms of catastrophes.