Joint U.S. Korea Academic Studies
From the Issue
Joint U.S.-Korea Academic Studies 2015About Joint U.S. Korea Academic Studies
For over twenty years, KEI has sponsored annual major academic symposiums at universities across the country and major academic conferences. Each year, papers are specially commissioned to fit panel topics of current policy relevance to the U.S.-ROK alliance and implications for the Korean peninsula. Following the symposium, KEI edits and publishes those papers in an annual volume entitled “Joint U.S.-Korea Academic Studies.”
Author: Sandra Fahy
Region: Asia
Theme: Foreign Relations, Security, Domestic
Location: Korea, North, Korea, South
Published February 29, 2016
Download PDFMoving from the powerful and abstract construct of ethnic homogeneity as bearing the promise for unification, this chapter instead considers family unity, facilitated by the quotidian and ubiquitous tools of mobile phones and money, as a force with a demonstrated record showing contemporary practices of unification on the peninsula. From the “small unification” (jageun tongil) where North Korean defectors pay brokers to bring family out, to the transmission of voice through the technology of mobile phones illegally smuggled from China, this paper explores practices of unification presently manifesting on the Korean Peninsula.