Dis/covering Japan in Korea: Colonial Impact, Legacy, and Cultural Politics of Whaling in Korea

Keywords: Whaling, Japanese Colonialism, Korea, Historical Political Ecology, Cultural Politics
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Tuesday
Session Start / End Time: 3/1/2022 08:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 3/1/2022 09:20 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 33

Abstract

Whaling around the Korean Peninsula spans over 100 years, deserve attention in understanding modern historical geography of Korea and Japan. Suspended officially since 1986 when the International Whaling Commission’s whaling moratorium took effect, whaling has taken place in South Korea, incurring conflicts over whaling and whale conservation. Whereas sufficient attempts have been conducted to reconcile these whaling concerns, little attention has been paid to how the conflicts are historically contingent, particularly engaging with Japanese colonialism. Once encompassing a fifth of the globe, the Japanese colonial expansion was just as contingent upon dominating nature as it was on subjugating people and territory. Interested in abundant whales around colonial Korea, Japanese industrial whaling exploited them and left legacies in liberated Korea in many ways. This research aims to examine how Korea and Japan are bound up with historical whaling, and how various whaling relations are represented and remembered in contemporary Korea. Building on historical political ecology and cultural politics approaches, this project will explore what political, economic, and ecological factors reinforced or undermined whaling around Korean seas. Moreover, I investigate what drives underscoring the narrative of whaling as Korean culture independent of historical engagements with Japan. Considering colonial whaling and its association with contemporary whaling dynamic in Korea, I will carry out archival analysis and in-depth interviews in (former) whaling cities in South Korea and Japan. This project will contribute to expanding historical and geographic attention to East Asia through disentangling historical whaling entanglements between Korea and Japan.