I’ll be giv­ing a talk next week at the Centre for Women’s and Gender Studies at UBC. It’s an updated ver­sion of the talk I gave a cou­ple of months ago at NYU, Rutgers, and UW, deal­ing with notions of mis­sion­ary cus­tody. As usual, I promise uncon­ven­tional analy­sis, mov­ing sto­ries and even bet­ter visu­als.

Centre for Women’s and Gender Studies, UBC
Spring 2011 Lecture Series

Wednesday, February 2^nd, 2011
12:00 – 1:00 pm

At the Centre for Women’s and Gender Studies
2080 West Mall (028) Jack Bell Building

Everyone wel­come!

Beyond good inten­tions and evil regimes: North Koreans in Korean/American mis­sion­ary custody

Since the early 1990s, tens of thou­sands of North Koreans have left their famine-stricken homes in search of food and liveli­hood. Living with­out legal sta­tus in north­east China, many of these undoc­u­mented North Koreans — major­ity women — expe­ri­ence dire con­di­tions includ­ing crim­i­nal­iza­tion and forcible repa­tri­a­tion, slave wage labor, forced mar­riages, and sex work. In this bleak sit­u­a­tion, South Korean and Korean American evan­gel­i­cal Christian mis­sion­ar­ies and reli­gious NGOs carry out sig­nif­i­cant human­i­tar­ian advo­cacy work in what has been described as an “under­ground rail­road,” man­ag­ing rela­tions with state author­i­ties and traf­fick­ing bro­kers, oper­at­ing safe houses, and facil­i­tat­ing travel for those seek­ing asy­lum. However, with no sys­tems for trans­parency or account­abil­ity in place, there is also grow­ing con­cern for how these under­ground mis­sion­ary net­works reg­u­late and dis­ci­pline the expec­ta­tions and expe­ri­ences of North Korean bor­der crossers in their cus­tody. Drawing on inter­views and ethno­graphic research of evan­gel­i­cal mis­sions, this talk will present ques­tions about inten­tion­al­ity and power, and dis­cuss the legal-ethical-spatial pol­i­tics of the safe house, touted as both tem­po­rary and necessary.

I’m giv­ing a Korean stud­ies col­lo­quium talk at the Center for Korean Studies at the University of Washington in Seattle next week. My talk at NYU was announced over the Alliance of Scholars Concerned about Korea (ASCK) list, and I think that’s how the folks at the University of Washington heard about my work. Although it’s very last minute — and even though I’m work­ing on a dif­fer­ent talk at UBC on November 9 — this will be an oppor­tu­nity to improve my argu­ments on the “space of cus­tody,” incor­po­rat­ing the won­der­ful feed­back I received from all the smart crit­i­cal folks at Rutgers and NYU.

***

Thursday, November 4, 2010, 3:30pm

Beyond Good Intentions and Evil Regimes: North Koreans in Korean/American Missionary Custody
The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington
Denny Hall 314 (email uwcks@​uw.​edu for more information)

Since the early 1990s, tens of thou­sands of North Koreans have left their famine-stricken homes in search of food and liveli­hood. Living with­out legal sta­tus in north­east China, the major­ity of these undoc­u­mented North Koreans are women, many of whom are traf­ficked into sex work or forced mar­riages. In this bleak sit­u­a­tion, South Korean and Korean American evan­gel­i­cal Christian mis­sion­ar­ies and reli­gious NGOs carry out sig­nif­i­cant human­i­tar­ian advo­cacy work, deal­ing with state author­i­ties and traf­fick­ing bro­kers, oper­at­ing safe houses, and mak­ing travel arrange­ments for those seek­ing asy­lum. But with no sys­tems for trans­parency or account­abil­ity in place, there is also con­cern for how the mis­sion­ary net­works reg­u­late and dis­ci­pline the expec­ta­tions and expe­ri­ences of North Korean bor­der crossers in their cus­tody. Drawing on inter­views and ethno­graphic research on Korean/American evan­gel­i­cal mis­sions, Dr. Han I will dis­cuss how the mis­sion­ary net­works raise ques­tions about inten­tion, power, and the pol­i­tics of custody. 

The New York trip has become a bit of a speak­ing tour. I’ve agreed to give another lec­ture while I’m there — a Korean Studies Colloquium talk at NYU on Monday night. It’s on the mis­sion­ary res­cue nar­ra­tive sur­round­ing undoc­u­mented North Korean migrants in China, the same topic as the shorter lec­ture I’m doing at Rutgers, but for a more knowl­edge­able audi­ence, so I’ll have to put more work into it. It should be of inter­est to stu­dents, aca­d­e­mics and activists inter­ested in reli­gion, human­i­tar­i­an­ism, and Korea/diaspora politics.

Monday, October 25 2010, 7pm

“Beyond good inten­tions and evil regimes: North Koreans in Korean/American mis­sion­ary cus­tody“
Silver Center, Room 208
62 Waverly Place, New York
Korean Studies Colloquium @ New York University

Since the early 1990s, tens of thou­sands of North Koreans have left their famine-stricken homes in search of food and liveli­hood. Living with­out legal sta­tus in north­east China, over 70% of these North Koreans are women, many of whom are traf­ficked into sex work or forced mar­riages. In this bleak sit­u­a­tion, South Korean and Korean American evan­gel­i­cal Christian mis­sion­ar­ies and reli­gious NGOs carry out sig­nif­i­cant human­i­tar­ian advo­cacy work. But with no sys­tems for trans­parency or account­abil­ity in place, there is also con­cern for how the mis­sion­ary net­works reg­u­late and dis­ci­pline the expec­ta­tions and expe­ri­ences of North Korean bor­der crossers in their cus­tody. Drawing on inter­views and ethno­graphic research on Korean/American evan­gel­i­cal mis­sions, Dr. Han will dis­cuss how the mis­sion­ary net­works raise ques­tions about inten­tion­al­ity and cus­tody.