Table Of ContentVisual Politics and North Korea
In the realm of international relations, there are seemingly few states like
North Korea. Whether it is the country’s human rights situation, its precarious
everyday life or its so-called foreign policy of coercion and nuclear brinkmanship,
no matter what this ‘pariah’ nation says or does it affects the state and stability of
regional and global politics. But what do we know about North Korea and how do
we come to know it? This book argues that visual imagery plays a decisive role
in this operation. By discussing two exemplary areas – everyday photography
and satellite imagery – the book takes into account the role of images in the way
that particular issues related to North Korea are understood in contemporary
geopolitics. Images work. They do something by evoking a particular perspective
of what is shown in them, allowing only specific ways of seeing and knowing. In
this sense, images are deeply political. Individual methodological usages in the
book can provide a procedural basis from which to start or rethink further studies
on visuality, both in IR and beyond. It also opens an innovative path for future
studies on East Asia, making the book attractive to a range of specialists and thus
holding an appeal beyond the boundaries of a single discipline.
David Shim is Assistant Professor, Department of International Relations and
International Organization, University of Groningen and Associate Research
Fellow at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA).
Interventions
Edited by Jenny Edkins
Aberystwyth University
Nick Vaughan-Williams
University of Warwick
‘As Michel Foucault has famously stated, “knowledge is not made for under-
standing; it is made for cutting.” In this spirit the Edkins–Vaughan-Williams
Interventions series solicits cutting edge, critical works that challenge mainstream
understandings in international relations. It is the best place to contribute post
disciplinary works that think rather than merely recognize and affirm the world
recycled in IR’s traditional geopolitical imaginary’
Michael J. Shapiro, University of Hawai’i at Mãnoa, USA
The series aims to advance understanding of the key areas in which scholars work-
ing within broad critical post-structural and post-colonial traditions have chosen to
make their interventions, and to present innovative analyses of important topics.
Titles in the series engage with critical thinkers in philosophy, sociology, politics
and other disciplines and provide situated historical, empirical and textual studies
in international politics.
Critical Theorists and Governing Sustainable Development
International Relations Partnership, protest and power at the
Edited by Jenny Edkins and world summit
Nick Vaughan-Williams Carl Death
Ethics as Foreign Policy Insuring Security
Britain, the EU and Biopolitics, security and risk
the other Luis Lobo-Guerrero
Dan Bulley
Foucault and International Relations
Universality, Ethics and New critical engagements
International Relations Edited by Nicholas J. Kiersey
A grammatical reading and Doug Stokes
Véronique Pin-Fat
International Relations and
The Time of the City Non-Western Thought
Politics, philosophy, Imperialism, colonialism and
and genre investigations of global modernity
Michael J. Shapiro Edited by Robbie Shilliam
Autobiographical International Theorising Post-Conflict
Relations Reconciliation
I, IR Agonism, restitution and repair
Edited by Naeem Inayatullah Edited by Alexander Keller Hirsch
War and Rape Europe’s Encounter with Islam
Law, memory and justice The secular and the postsecular
Nicola Henry Luca Mavelli
Madness in International Relations Re-Thinking International Relations
Psychology, security and the Theory via Deconstruction
global governance of mental Badredine Arfi
health
The New Violent Cartography
Alison Howell
Geo-analysis after the aesthetic turn
Spatiality, Sovereignty and Edited by Sam Okoth Opondo
Carl Schmitt and Michael J. Shapiro
Geographies of the nomos
Insuring War
Edited by Stephen Legg
Sovereignty, security and risk
Politics of Urbanism Luis Lobo-Guerrero
Seeing like a city
International Relations,
Warren Magnusson
Meaning and Mimesis
Beyond Biopolitics Necati Polat
Theory, violence and horror
The Postcolonial Subject
in world politics
Claiming politics/governing
François Debrix and
others in late modernity
Alexander D. Barder
Vivienne Jabri
The Politics of Speed Foucault and the Politics
Capitalism, the state and war of Hearing
in an accelerating world Lauri Siisiäinen
Simon Glezos
Volunteer Tourism in the
Politics and the Art of Global South
Commemoration Giving back in neoliberal times
Memorials to struggle in Wanda Vrasti
Latin America and Spain
Cosmopolitan Government
Katherine Hite
in Europe
Indian Foreign Policy Citizens and entrepreneurs in
The politics of postcolonial postnational politics
identity Owen Parker
Priya Chacko
Studies in the Trans-Disciplinary
Politics of the Event Method
Time, movement, becoming After the aesthetic turn
Tom Lundborg Michael J. Shapiro
Alternative Accountabilities Postcolonial Encounters with
in Global Politics International Relations
The scars of violence The politics of transgression
Brent J. Steele Alina Sajed
Celebrity Humanitarianism Post-Tsunami Reconstruction
The ideology of global charity in Indonesia
Ilan Kapoor Negotiating normativity through
gender mainstreaming initiatives
Deconstructing International
in Aceh
Politics
Marjaana Jauhola
Michael Dillon
Leo Strauss and the Invasion of Iraq
The Politics of Exile
Encountering the abyss
Elizabeth Dauphinee
Aggie Hirst
Democratic Futures
Production of Postcolonial India
Revisioning democracy promotion
and Pakistan
Milja Kurki
Meanings of partition
Postcolonial Theory Ted Svensson
A critical introduction
War, Identity and the Liberal State
Edited by Sanjay Seth
Everyday experiences of the
More than Just War
geopolitical in the armed forces
Narratives of the just war and Victoria M. Basham
military life
Charles A. Jones Writing Global Trade Governance
Discourse and the WTO
Deleuze & Fascism
Michael Strange
Security: war: aesthetics
Edited by Brad Evans and Julian Reid Politics of Violence
Militancy, international politics,
Feminist International Relations
killing in the name
‘Exquisite Corpse’
Charlotte Heath-Kelly
Marysia Zalewski
Ontology and World Politics
The Persistence of Nationalism
Void universalism I
From imagined communities to
Sergei Prozorov
urban encounters
Angharad Closs Stephens Theory of the Political Subject
Void universalism II
Interpretive Approaches to
Sergei Prozorov
Global Climate Governance
Reconstructing the greenhouse Visual Politics and North Korea
Edited by Chris Methmann, Seeing is believing
Delf Rothe and Benjamin Stephan David Shim
Visual Politics and
North Korea
Seeing is believing
David Shim
First published 2014
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
And published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2014 David Shim
The right of David Shim to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and
Patent Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Shim, David.
Visual politics and North Korea: seeing is believing/David Shim.
pages cm. – (Interventions)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Visual communication–Political aspects. 2. World politics.
3. Korea (North)–Foreign relations. I. Title.
P93.5.S55 2013
302.23’095193–dc23 2013011790
ISBN: 978-0-415-83948-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-74647-9 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Sunrise Setting Ltd, Paignton, UK
To my parents Seun-ock (Dominika) and
Dong-koun (Daniel) Shim
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Contents
List of figures x
Preface xi
Note on transliteration xiv
List of abbreviations xv
Introduction 1
1 Approaching and analysing visual representation 9
2 Practices of looking and North Korea 47
3 Seeing on the ground: everyday photography and
North Korea 57
4 Seeing from above: satellite imagery and North Korea 91
Conclusion 118
Notes 133
Bibliography 138
Index 167
