Precarity to Empowerment: the Consequences of Female North Korean Defectors’ Coping Skills and Social Navigation

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Gender, Place & Culture A Journal of Feminist Geography

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Precarity to empowerment: the consequences of female North Korean defectors’ coping skills and social navigation

HaeRan Shin

To cite this article: HaeRan Shin (2021): Precarity to empowerment: the consequences of female North Korean defectors’ coping skills and social navigation, Gender, Place & Culture, DOI: 10.1080/0966369X.2021.1951679 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2021.1951679

Published online: 23 Jul 2021.

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Precarity to empowerment: the consequences of female North Korean defectors’ coping skills and social navigation

HaeRan Shin Department of Geography, Institute for Korean Regional Studies, Institute for Gender Research, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY This ethnographic study of female North Korean defectors Received 17 June 2021 in the UK opens discussions on the notion that agency and Accepted 17 June 2021 social navigation can countermand economic and political KEYWORDS precarity to the point of empowerment. I challenge existing Empowerment; North literature and schools of thought that precarity is double Koreans; precarity; edged and suggest the term of social navigation, which social navigation; these women employ to traverse their shifting environment transnational ethnic leading to unintentional empowerment. By documenting networks; women North Korean women’s plight from the 1994 to 1998 famine in North Korea to their defection to South Korea and sub- sequent resettlement to London’s New Malden, I plot their progression and growing confidence as they parlay precarity to empowerment. Research collected on their lives during the economic crisis in North Korea before defection revealed their resourceful and somewhat defiant ventures into capitalist-style markets. Analysing the results of the fieldwork conducted in a suburb of New Malden’s Koreatown, I discovered that these women’s adaptability and ethnic networks enabled them to not only survive uncertain situations but thrive. The shift from care-giver to bread-winner that started in North Korea was consolidated in the UK as they once again turned adversity to an advantage when the UK government decreased financial support. In the Korean community, by focusing on educational and cultural activities instead of political turmoil, those women have been able to focus on moving forward. As a result, they have found a power in themselves to make differences in their lives.

Introduction This study examines how married female North Korean defectors’ adaptive responses to economic and political precarity have occasioned unexpected

CONTACT HaeRan Shin [email protected] Department of Geography, Institute for Korean Regional Studies, Institute for Gender Research, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Korea © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group 2 H. SHIN empowerment within their families and community. Defectors are those who in escaping from their homeland must also forsake it. I use this term rather than refugees, a term referring to their status in the receiving country, or migrants, people free to return to their home countries (See Kim (2012) for the changing social discourses of each term in the North Korean contexts). Here, empowerment results from the development of self-confidence through the expansion of one’s contribution and influence to the betterment of one’s subordinate position (Parmar 2003). Empowerment has been at the centre of growing interest in migration research largely due to their theories of change and engagement (Fischer and van Houte 2020). Previous studies on migrants and refugees have focused primarily on their resistance to adversity and resilience in survival, earning for themselves a modicum of empowerment. As a result, not enough attention was paid to less overtly dramatic matters such as how women’s adaptation to their situations leads from precarity to empowerment. In those studies that do address Asian migrant women’s cases, discussions are mainly limited to their experiences as domestic workers and marriage migrations (see Constable 2015; Uekusa and Lee 2020). This study highlights a relatively under-researched group’s responses to precariousness in their daily lives to demonstrate how the structure and individuals interact in the course of their mobilities and settlements. The significance of the research for feminist geographies lies in the understanding of the contextualised interplay of mobilities, precarity, and empowerment This research focuses on those North Korean women who after some years in South Korea relocated to settle in the Korean ethnic enclave in London, England. The precarity that develops from the fluctuating situations caused by their mobilities test these women’s flexibility and the strength of their ethnic networks and social navigation skills. In this case, ‘social navigation’ involves extricating themselves from restrictive social forces to secure better positions in a changing setting (Vigh 2009, 419). The term social navigation conceptualizes the ways people move within changing social environments. As North Korean defectors faced not only economic but also political precarity, their daily lives were beset by dual external forces. Arbitrary immigration policy changes, geopolitical shifts, and conflicts within the North Korean community are some of the situations creating precarity that these women have had to manage. Precarity and social navigation are relevant to this study since one intro- duces stressors to the lives of the North Korean female migrants and the other alleviates them. First, precarity creates an environment of chaos and insecurity that results in potential threats but also opportunities for these women. Second, social navigation becomes the coping mechanism these women employ to traverse their shifting environment leading to unintentional empowerment. Existing discussions on precarity and the precariat (Butler 2006; Standing 2016; Waite 2009; Woon 2014) have focused on Gender, Place & Culture 3 mounting insecurity and unpredictability caused by the economic and social changes of contemporary society in general. Precariat refers to those people who face and/or suffer from escalating precarity. The term is the combination of precarious and proletariat, indicating an emerging class in the contemporary society (Standing 2016). They are those workers who lack the basic securities of the mid-twentieth century (Standing 2012; Paret and Gleeson 2016).Those debates that mainly view precarity as a threat and danger to the populace’s economic and psychological well-being, however, discount their adaptive social navigation (Vigh 2009). There has been ethnographic research on precarious populations’ resistance and resilience, discussing the precarity-migration-agency nexus (Paret and Gleeson 2016). In this paper, agency suggests female North Korean defectors’ employment of social navigation as a coping mechanism (Wall 2019) in overcoming economic and political precarity, which gives rise empowerment. Social navigation focuses on agency where it intersects with social forces and change, but it is agency against structure rather than agency as an autonomous and absolute subject (Vigh 2009: 432). For this case study, I pose two questions: How have female North Korean defectors’ gendered roles inside and outside the home equipped them to respond to their precarity? How has their social navigation led them into empowerment? This ethnographic fieldwork on female North Korean defectors living in a suburb of London’s Koreatown revealed that their empowerment was more often an unintended outcome or by-product of pragmatic survival strategies than the predicted results of a calculated process. Of those survival strategies, the one some might least expect to contribute to their empowerment was women’s traditional gender roles as care-givers and in North Korea that inadvertently prepared them to assume responsibilities outside the home. Another was their simple willingness to take on any task and optimise every opportunity that would empower them to help their family survive their mobilities and resettlement from North Korea to South Korea to the United Kingdom. Yet another was the organisational skills attained through mandatory participation in activities in North Korea, skills these North Korean female defectors employed as they took leading roles in the Korean ethnic community in London. This study argues that these survival strategies and social navigation skills as well as the women’s ability to improvise when all else failed contributed to their empowerment. For the above arguments, the rest of this paper is organised as follows. The next section discusses the concepts of precarity and social navigation and suggests reconsidering those notions in terms of opportunities and empowerment. This is followed by an introduction of the specific case of female North Korean defectors in London. The first finding section focuses on how these women’s gendered mobility helped them cope with the 4 H. SHIN phasing down of refugee benefits at the same time as raising their status in their families. The second finding section outlines women’s empowerment outside the home through their activities in the Korean ethnic community and the networks they built around their children’s education in particular. The conclusion discusses academic and practical implications of the findings of this study.

Theoretical framework: precarity and social navigation for empowerment Discussions on precarity have had significant implications for studies on migrant women including female defectors. In earlier discussions, Bourdieu (Waite 2009) focused on how the progressively flexible job market (Anderson 2010; Fudge and Owens 2006) is perpetrating insecurity, instability, and uncertainty. As welfare decreases (Neilson and Rossiter 2008), this infringes on a society’s already marginalised people’s way of life, creating what Guy Standing (2012, 2016) has designated the precariat. He argues that eventually everyone will become a member of the precariat to some degree and that precariat could be inclined to volatile political action (Butler 2006; Waite 2009; Woon 2014). Despite criticism of Bourdieu’s and Standing’s simplistic approaches (Mosoetsa, Stillerman, and Tilly 2016), these earlier discussions on precarity have contributed to a comprehensive understanding of the relations between the global political economy and individuals’ lifestyles and emotions. They delved deeper into the drawbacks but touching somewhat upon the new opportunities in individuals’ lives too (Lewis et al. 2015; Standing 2012). Women and migrants as well as youths, the elderly, the disabled, welfare claimants, and criminals (Standing 2016) primarily compose the ‘precariat’. Migrants who embody multiple forms of vulnerability experience precarity in multifaceted ways (Paret and Gleeson 2016; Worth, 2016). For instance, precarity in the job market is exacerbated by discrimination, disrespect, and abuse for migrant women of colour (Wu, 2016). Defectors, including North Koreans, join the ranks of the precariat in the destination countries. According to Butler (2006, 20), they are ‘socially constituted bodies, attached to others, at risk of losing those attachments, exposed to others, at risk of violence by virtue of that exposure.’ They are highly vulnerable and at risk of depor- tation to a homeland, and therefore are under the sway of the destination nation-state (Paret and Gleeson 2016; Wee, Goh, and Yeoh 2019). While this study presents female defectors as an articulated example of the precariat, it at the same time questions this characterization due to their proactive efforts to overcome precarity and the productiveness of those efforts. Based on the results of this ethnographic fieldwork, this study breaks down criticism of previous literature into two parts. Gender, Place & Culture 5

First, it challenges previous literature that has only focused on precarity as a threat and the heroic resistance or community-based resilience to that threat, paying little attention to the fact that precarity is indeed double-edged. It also contests literature that defines agency as grand gestures such as the san papiers movement in France (Waite, 2009) or the spring 2006 migrant uprisings in the United States (Paret and Gleeson 2016). Second, it addresses previous literature on precarity that has not considered its less immediately obvious consequences and therefore offers an oversimplified and rather one-sided view of its effects. The majority of these studies analysed precarity within a framework of intersectionality but did not necessarily engage the combination of shifting strategies in fluctuating situations and unpredicted outcomes. In regards to migration and women, the consequences of precarity tend to diverge from the expected, which when considering the multitude of moves is not as rare as one might imag- ine. The North Korean women in this study, for example, underwent multiple changes of social forces: the economic collapse in North Korea, pressure to adjust to South Korean customs, tensions in the Korean community in the UK, and uncertainty about changing policies affecting their refugee status. The wide-ranging implications of migrant women’s organisational activities have begun to attract attention and in recent years have been deemed as empowerment (Caggiano 2019; Eijberts and Roggeband 2016). For example, Christopoulou and Leontsini (2017) studied the organisations in Athens arising from the collective action of migrant women suffering double mar- ginality (female and migrant) to demonstrate how they have forged connections to support their recognition strategy. The literature also addressed survival and resilience of precarious populations and resultant empowerment (Ncube, Bahta, and Jordaan 2019) in the cases of refugees (Canefe 2018; Waite et al. 2015; Tippens 2020), migrant women’s resistance (Babatunde‐ Sowole et al. 2020; Hlatshwayo 2019) and resilience (Round and Kuznetsova 2016). Standing (2016) is rather pessimistic about the collective capacity of migrants within the precariat, believing they largely keep their heads down and go about their business rather than pushing for social change. Neilson and Rossiter (2008) argue that precarity has been the norm in a wider his- torical and geographic scope for women and migrants long before these socio-economic changes attracted scholarly interest (See Bastia 2015 for migrants and urban informality). Under these circumstances, people that fall into these demographics had to develop flexible coping mechanisms (Shin 2008, 2011). While migrant women have certainly suffered from job insecurity, it is also true that they have adjusted and learned to be flexible and in doing so are able to take advantage of the very job markets creating precarity. The coping mechanism can be viewed as empowering when they secure a 6 H. SHIN family’s livelihood (Uekusa and Lee 2020). Mainly the previous discussion focused on femaleness and foreignness as well as their precarious legal status, which influenced their job options and family lives (Netto et al. 2020; Wang, Li, and Deng 2017). Due to a multitude of factors such as those just listed, social navigation emphasizes intermorphology and flexibility as key aspects of praxis. The concept of social navigation, ‘moving in relation to the movement of the social environment’ (Vigh 2010: 156), quite aptly illustrates these women’s flexibilities, adaptation and consequences. According to Deleuze and Guattari, the definition of navigating has come to include discovering, imagining and actualising a smooth space through dangerous waters (Vigh 2010: 156). It facilitates the simultaneous assessment of both, not either, social changes and individuals’ changes, ‘motion within motion’ (Vigh 2009: 420). Based on Social navigation, from this perspective, encompasses the assessment of both the dangers and prospects of one’s present position as well as the process of plotting and attempting to actualize routes to an uncertain and changeable future (Vigh 2009, 425). But there are several scholars who view the adaptive conformity as the basis for survival and power (Elster 2016; Kabeer 1999; Lewis 1966). The interaction between precarity and people’s reaction to it can culminate in rather accidental activism. One study shows that even those migrants who ambitiously pursued upward mobility and strategically used precarity to their advantage still ended up being caught in the precariat (Wang, Li, and Deng 2017). Another study on Vietnamese marriage migrants in South Korea (Kim and Shin 2018) documented a case of accidental activism. Through their work to support other marriage migrants, they became activists for marriage migrants’ rights. This study responds to Paret and Gleeson (2016)’s call for the study of broader political and economic shifts and how they reshape the relationships between individuals and groups within historically and geographically specific contexts. This study suggests approaching female defectors as an articulated example of the empowerment dynamics during precarity. From the economic crisis in North Korea, North Korean women’s function as active economic agents have emerged (Kim 2014, 2020). In uncertain circumstances, these women engage in social navigation to find or even offer security but not with the conscious intention to empower themselves (Hoang and Yeoh, 2011; Vigh 2009). The fact that their activities in the destination society do empower them is a fortunate by-product (See Parmar 2003 for the opposite by-product effect). Their adaptive attitudes towards engaging in the informal economy in North Korea and the United Kingdom prove their resilience (Kim 2020). That they continue to be the main care-givers for their children gives them access to ethnic networks based around their children’s education (Kim 2020) that enabled them to navigate precarious situations. Their adaptability and Gender, Place & Culture 7 social navigation of ethnic networks with other North Korean women are critical to their survival (Krajewski and Blumberg 2014). As Ehrkamp (2013) argues in the case of migrant women their compliances and resistance are complicatedly entangled.

Case background The case study focuses on those female North Korean defectors who live with their families in New Malden, a suburb of London and the location of the city’s Koreatown. This Koreatown has the greatest concentration of North Korean defectors (700) outside of South Korea and the highest number of South Korean migrants (10,000-15,000) in the UK. Korea has been divided into North and South Korea since the World War II, and are technically still at war. Mails, emails, phone calls, internet communications and telegrams are forbidden between the two countries. It is still illegal for South Koreans to contact North Koreans even outside the Korean peninsula. Although they share a language, Korean, there are differences in their accents and after over 50 years of segregation new words have been introduction that they do not share. The majority of the women in this study used to live in those areas in North Korea that border South Korea and made a circuitous escape through China before making their way to South Korea. Despite their shared ethnicity and language, many North Korean defectors have found it difficult to adjust to life in South Korea. North Korean defectors’ skills and education did not translate well in the South Korean job market. Additional issues have arisen from the fact that North Korean defectors are often viewed suspiciously as possible spies sent by their government. Though they tried to fit in, after some years many moved again, usually to countries like the United Kingdom. Regarding theirs reason for leaving, they explained that, despite their full willingness to assimilate to the society, they were tired of the pressure to adopt South Korean ideals and the unrelenting discrimination. Many admitted that they could better bear discrimination by people of different ethnicities than from their own kinsfolk. There are two main reasons so many North Koreans chose the UK as their next destination. The first reason was the liberal welfare system in place to support refugees and a lack of restrictions. Unlike some other countries that demanded proof that defectors had come directly from North Korea, the UK did not. Therefore defectors that had lived in South Korea first could still qualify for refugee status just by vowing they had come directly from North Korea. The refugee status has not been given since 2009, when the UK government strengthened its immigration control. (http://www.spnews.co.kr/ news/articleView.html?idxno=1017 accessed on 4 August 4, 2020). The changes to the migration policy and welfare system promoted North Koreans 8 H. SHIN to get jobs as the government reduced welfare for refugees and international students became not eligible for work so North Korean defectors could replace them in ethnic businesses (Shin, 2018, 2019). The second reason was the UK’s neutrality in regards to North Korea. This is in sharp contrast to the United States where North Korea was defined as an axis of evil and defectors felt they were viewed with suspicion. The arrival of North Korean defectors to the UK peaked around 2007 into 2008. The UK government was attentive to the needs of larger families, allocating houses with more rooms to accommodate their numbers, which motivated some North Korean families to start having more babies. As children born in the UK grew, however, their parents started to worry about a lack of exposure to the Korean language. Acting on their concern, a group of parents established a Korean language school for the 2nd generation. While there are a few North Korean organisations such as this language school, there are quite a few South Korean ones. South Korean organisations have increasingly integrated North Koreans and come to rely on North Korean defectors’ active participation and attendance. Those ethnic associations organised by men from either of the Koreas inevitably devolved into conflicts and struggled to stay afloat, whereas associations that primarily involved women such as South Korean seniors Association were thriving.

Research methods An ethnographic and interview-based approach revealed the micro-dynamics that empower those subject women by reason of their social navigation (Paret and Gleeson 2016). Based on this approach, this study used mixed ethnographic research methods and cross-checked the findings from different methods. The research methods included participant observation, in-depth interviews, and archival analysis. The participant observation and the face-to-face in-depth interviews were carried out during a concentrated period from August to December 2017 and January 2019. I have obtained a research ethics approval from the Institutional Review Board, Seoul National University (IRB No. 1708/002-009). Since my ten-year-old son attended the Korean language school for North Korean children located in New Malden in 2017, I had the advantage of being an insider of sorts during my participant observation there. As I could join various parents’ meetings, I could observe the mothers who are the main actors of the school and ask them to describe how their duties had evolved from the time of the famine to after their defection. I was also invited to informal gatherings and a birthday party and attended several events organised by South Korean or North Korean organisations. I also conducted in-depth interviews with several key actors. Gender, Place & Culture 9

There were additional in-depth interviews in January 2019 focusing on women’s roles with nine key actor women. The interviews included questions on their position on the family’s defection and resettlements, their participation in organisations in the UK, and their career development over the past ten to twenty years. Although the interviews were tape-recorded to have official records, the semi-structured format of the interview invited confidences and unexpected stories. From my first observations in 2011 up to this time, I have become well acquainted with almost all the key actors in the North and South Korean organisations. My previous research has contributed to an accumulation of data that includes the examination of women’s reaction to the famine in North Korea, resettlement in South Korea, and involvement in organisational activities in the UK. Over almost a decade of women sharing their experiences and retrospective interpretations with me, I have come to understand how women’s function inside and outside the home have changed. I have analysed the data, using an interpretative and comprehensive approach to sift through the information to discover women’s shifting responsibilities have had the accidental effect of empowering them.

Empowerment inside and outside the household: economic and political turbulence and adaptation North Korean women suffered through the economic and political shifts in North Korea that precipitated the Arduous March, a period of famine and general economic crisis from 1994 to 1998. They endured precarity in the uncertainty of resettlement and the job situations in South Korea and the UK. They adapted to reduced welfare benefits in the UK that compelled them to go out to find jobs once again to be able to feed their families. The interviewees commonly described their struggle to find work and low-wage jobs being their only option in all three countries. This indicates that they were already tailoring their adaptive responses as social navigation to cope with precarious situations before they ever defected. In 1946, North Korea passed a law that declared men and women equal and went so far as to promote women working outside the home and wage parity. Women with children received more benefits than men. For example, according to one interviewee, women with three children aged 13 or less would be paid eight hours for six hours of work. Despite legislation, traditional domestic division of labour often consigned women to being home- makers. Women were mobilised to work during a labour shortage, but when the need for them in the workforce ended in the late 1980s, they were expected to exit the labour market. The interviewees’ attitude was that coming from a staunchly patriarchal society that puts men as the head of family had already prepared them to 10 H. SHIN accept secondary positions. It is true that many single women had jobs in North Korea, one interviewee explained, adding though that after marrying, most women quit their jobs. Since the distribution that supplied necessities like food previous to the 1990s economic crisis was made out to the men as the heads of the household, women were financially dependent, which became a problem should a woman want a divorce. It was only after North Korea suffered a serious economic crisis lasting from 1994 to 1998 and the public distribution system collapsed that economic empowerment became a possibility for women. Since men had to continue to work unpaid or face punishment and food rations had stopped, it was up to women to find alternative sources of income to survive the famine. As married women did not work outside the home, they started selling things (Kim 2020) to earn money to support their families. They initiated an unofficial market called Jangmadang (Choe, 2015), which could include everything from farmers’ markets to informal local markets to black markets. These markets have developed significantly since the 1990s, and currently the majority of North Koreans depend on them for their survival. Witnessing the development of the informal economy, people realised the importance of flexible and informal survival strategies. One interviewee explained,

We used to live inside a bubble. The government protected us and provided everything, even underwear. Then, the public distribution stopped, so people had no idea what to do but sit and starve. Now people are different because of their Jangmadang experiences. I don’t think that they would just starve if a similar crisis happens again. (A North Korean woman in her 40s, 8 January 2019)

This interviewee described how ill-equipped North Koreans were to cope with the deprivations of the economic crisis but added that they had since learned to adapt to survive. As Kim (2020) indicates, the economic collapse forced North Korean women to become active economic agents that required a dramatic shift from their traditional status as wife and mother to bread-winner. The answers given during the interviews for this study were in the line with the findings in Kim’s study. The interview subjects confessed that working in Jangmadang opened their eyes to the need for flexibility and mobility in capitalising on economic opportunities. While the crisis itself obliged women to adapt and develop coping mechanisms, the satisfaction women experienced as they took care of the household economy through selling wares at Jangmadang empowered them. Regarding women’s empowerment based on economic activities, another woman rationalised,

Women especially learned how to survive without the state’s protection during the crisis. Before the crisis in North Korea, men were prioritised because the national Gender, Place & Culture 11

distribution was in the man’s name only. It’s called a distribution ticket. Those tickets became redundant as national resources became limited. After women began to go to Jangmadang, their experiences opened their eyes to a new modern society where everybody is making money. (A North Korean woman in her 40s, 9 January 2019

Women’s changing status through their experiences in Jangmadang has attracted quite a bit of attention. Other studies (Jung and Dalton 2006; Kim 2020) have examined the evolving status of women since the economic crisis and the impact their actions have had on the emerging capitalist processes within North Korea. Their empowerment was primarily practiced in relations with their family members, but especially husbands. The consequences of their actions on a country’s trajectory notwithstanding, women’s fathers or husbands still did not involve them in the decision to escape to South Korea. Even though they were not consulted, but the women seemed to find the decision acceptable nonetheless. In fact, the majority of the female interviewees did not express a consciousness of unequal gender relations in either North Korea or South Korea or both. Their focus was on their resettlement process and acceptance by South Koreans, and in fact what bothered them most was the implied hierarchy that put North Koreans at the bottom. According to my interviewees, the discrimination they found to be truly injurious was committed by co-ethnic South Koreans. One interview subject clarified,

South Korea is like a foreign country but one where I didn’t have a language problem. I even thought that facing discrimination in a country that is in fact foreign would be less awful. (A North Korean woman in her 30s, 11 January 2019)

This was a common sentiment among interview subjects, and many felt nothing was worse than to be looked down on by South Koreans. They were deeply disappointed when their expectation of friendly and sympathetic attitudes based on common ethnicity and history was met with prejudice. Many of the interviewees relayed recollections of being treated disdainfully when they acted in a way that revealed an ignorance of the cultural code in South Korea. Although they felt disempowered by these experiences, motivated by them to consider how to improve upon their relations with South Koreans even in the UK. Because of their shared language, they could understand the discrimina- tory and hurtful remarks that South Koreans aimed at them. The antagonistic and complicated relations between North Korea and South Korea made them extra sensitive to every slight. The feeling that they were scorned at every turn was one of the reasons they left South Korea. For many of them, South Korea had not been their first choice anyway. Originally, and quite apart from the discrimination they experienced after, that was due to the difficulty in sending remittances to their families left in North Korea from South Korea. 12 H. SHIN

But since South Korea is closest, relocating there was the easiest and fastest way of settling down. During the conservative regime in the UK, the refugee welfare that North Korean defectors could rely on continued to be reduced. The benefit cut compelled North Korean defectors to participate in the job market. Some had opted to work chiefly in a Korean migrants’ job market to earn extra cash previous to these changes, but with these cuts, the majority of defectors had to start working outside the home. They found work in South Korean shops, restaurants, grocery stores, cleaning companies, and on construction sites. Timing helped them get these jobs. First, North Koreans seeking jobs fortuitously coincided with Korean Chinese migrants returning to China, leaving vacancies that need to be filled in South Korean businesses. Second, their children were old enough to go to nurseries, so those female defectors were freed up to get full-time jobs. Once North Korean women started working, they quickly became the primary bread-winners in their households. North Korean men held out for jobs they felt reflected their station in life, while women were willing to take the low-income and less-respected jobs their husbands shunned. As a result, many North Korean men had spotty employment or were jobless, whereas women worked consistently. One woman reasoned that because of the gender hierarchy ideology, men believe that they should hold important positions, relegating women to lowlier jobs. During the famine, women did whatever it took to survive, even daring to start capitalism-styled selling that could be considered subversive. She outlined the gender difference in the attitudes towards a job with an example from her own life:

My husband often stopped working, and my brother switched jobs several times. They would say, ‘Should I really do this kind of job? I can become something important.’ So I told my husband that, even if you do cleaning, the money you get from the labour is precious. I am thinking of running a food-delivery truck. I know I will do anything for my children. But my husband said that he can’t do physical labour because his physique is small. And he is looking for a good job for him. (A North Korean in her 40s, 14 January 2019)

Their approaches to precarity had both negative and positive outcomes. On the one hand, willingness to accept low-paying job constrains opportunities to seek better jobs and invest time in their personal improvement, limiting their long-term empowerment. On the other hand, this same willingness to take any job to financially support their families puts them in a position of power in the household. One female interviewee confessed,

When I stayed at home, I felt guilty because I was dependent on my husband’s income. I don’t feel guilty any longer because I am making money. (A North Korean woman in her 40s, 8 January 2019) Gender, Place & Culture 13

This woman enjoyed her job and spent time during the interview pas- sionately discussing her ideas for improving workplace procedures. This woman described the hardships she experienced traversing two rivers to cross into China to petition the German embassy for passage to South Korea that made her feel strong and unbeatable. Her husband’s view of her trans- formation was slightly different. He informed her that her boldness hurt his pride, which discouraged her from continuing to address difficulties outside the home. These women’s unrelenting determination to work was akin to their efforts to save their families from starvation in North Korea, and sub- sequently was a second awakening of their power for them. They faced down foreign surroundings, low-wage jobs and lack of a family network and rose to the challenge, discovering their strength in the process. Exposure to British culture and attitudes to gender roles seemed to influence North Korean defectors’ views on marriage. One leader in the North Korean community disclosed that, of 100 households, 32 couples were divorced by 2016. While the reasons given when filing for divorce included affairs, domestic violence and financial difficulties, this interviewee disclosed that defectors had noticed and mimicked the permissive attitudes to divorce in the UK. He argued that since the UK courts usually accepted women’s testimony unreservedly, this left men on the defensive and in a weaker position sometimes unfairly. Allocation of housing in the UK further empowered North Korean women even if inadvertently. The UK government automatically put the house granted to the defector family. Some couples pretended to separate so each could have a house. Since it was assumed the children would remain with their mother, the woman would retain the bigger house. If the UK government discovered the ruse, the smaller house assigned to the husband was repossessed, but the family was permitted to retain the house in the woman’s name. Women were now not only the bread-winners but the officially rec- ognised heads of their households. Outside the home, jobs and being the official head of the household gained them public empowerment. But privately two things contributed to these North Korean women’s personal empowerment: the North Korean female defectors’ networks and the absence of parents-in-law. These women built strong networks that were a source of information on jobs for example and companionship in their daily lives. The interviewees explained by knowing who worked where, when that person gave notice, news of the vacancy quickly spread. These networks replaced the extended families that women depended on in North Korea in a way that was most favourable to them. As the philosophy of Confucianism still dominates North Korea society, women are obliged to follow the dictates of their husband’s parents. Several admitted that since being far from their parents-in-law, they finally have the freedom to follow their own desires. 14 H. SHIN

Emerging power in the ethnic Korean community through educational and cultural activities Female North Korean defectors’ main social navigation was their access to the transnational ethnic networks that would help shore up their precarious lives. The networks played a critical part in assuaging collective concerns about diasporic migrant education. Their gender-related role as primary care-givers drove them to get involved in organisations of community activities associated with the family structure. Involvement in organisations such as their children’s language school, cultural organisations, and politically neutral organisations such as the Korean Seniors Association was purely for the good of the family. Women were not consciously seeking empowerment through these activities, but that is exactly what came of their participation. In the Korean ethnic enclave, North Koreans and with South Korean women lives revolved around some networks for child care, jobs, and a sense of community. Though North Korean men established an ethnic association as well, opposing political groups argued regarding the leadership and almost everything else until others tired of the struggle, and the association almost collapsed. In the meantime, the women’s cultural and educational activities were thriving since their activities were not rooted in politics but concern for their families, which precluded political conflict. Appropriately, cultural and educational organisations became the hub of the Korean ethnic community. For example, the most popular and best-attended affairs were organised by the South Korean Seniors Association. Their events such as the Traditional Korean Costume Fashion Show and Korean Thanksgiving festival had universal appeal and attracted South Korean and North Korean women alike. North Korean women actively participated in almost all the events in Koreatown, and it is a fact that more women attended the North Korean ethnic Association even with their children in tow than men. And, even in the events of South Korean organisations, North Koreans, mainly women outnumbered South Koreans. To my question why they are so active, one female North Korean defector laughed and said,

We are just so used to participating in group activities. We were all involved in some organisational activities because not participating in organisational activities would be like betraying North Korea. There was a severe conflict within the North Korean community for the leadership of the ethnic association. But once there is an event announcement, we just call each other and everybody will join. (A North Korean woman in her 40s, 14 January 2019)

She explained that, in North Korea, women had always been involved in associations, so these social activities are quite familiar and, in a way, com- forting. It was customary, however, for women to join organisations according Gender, Place & Culture 15 to their marital statuses. The organisational activities included collecting trash or iron for economic resources and having self-criticising/reflection discussions. During community participation in New Malden, though, their encounters with South Korean migrant women required delicate handling and truly tested their social navigation skills. Interactions usually took place in their children’s schools or events hosted by ethnic organisations, and though the atmosphere was not overtly unfriendly, it was fraught with tension and complicated by underlying discord and discrimination. Those female North Korean defectors were quite aware of the hierarchy that exists in the ethnic Korean community. They were in a secondary position within the community and they knew it. Smiling knowingly, one North Korean woman stated,

We are the bottom of the bottom in the food chain. (A North Korean woman in her 40s, 8 January 2019)

She was speaking of that combination of refugee status, their country’s lack of the geopolitical power, and their gender, all stereotypes of the ulti- mate minority. She knew this to be the case in the eyes of the world, but also to South Koreans, their co-ethnic neighbours. If one considers ethnicity as a glue that binds people together, then North Koreans’ settlement in South Korea should have been successful. The failure of shared ethnicity to bring people together in this case needs to be viewed as a product of geopolitical relations. For instance, South Koreans’ instead of treating North Korean defectors as their equals were openly condescend- ing. One of the school mothers complained,

They[South Koreans] have told us[North Koreans] that they are our big brothers. I can’t tolerate listening to such ridiculous comments any longer. Why are they big brothers to us? Is it just because they are richer than we are? (A North Korean woman in her 40s, 12 January 2019)

This woman was proud to be North Korean and could not fathom why South Koreans would feel superior for any reason, least of all because they were wealthier. Of those South Koreans that behaved as if North Koreans were inferior, many would outright eschew community events to avoid them. The unequal treatment of North Koreans by South Korean women played out in cultural rather than political forums. One North Korean interviewee accused South Koreans of dissembling and forever beating about the bush. She elaborated that since North Koreans were expected to make public confessions regularly, they are accustomed to straightforward answers and blunt honesty. A South Korean woman did not comment on North Korean women’s bluntness but admitted that she was annoyed by their fashion and makeup styles. She declared that North Korean women looked old-fashioned and appeared too North Korean to South Koreans’ eyes. 16 H. SHIN

Despite their differences, they will work together to develop an organisation’s capacity, unlike the men who have proved themselves to be com- bative. One South Korean interviewee professed to petitioning the headquarters of the South Korean seniors association to award North Koreans and Korean Chinese that contributed to the organisation an official membership. There were various replies regarding the dynamic relations between, South Korea, North Korea, and UK and the possibility of geopolitical changes. It should be pointed out that it was South Koreans’ misconception that had South Koreans expecting North Korean defectors to embrace all things South Korean. Quite the opposite is true as North Koreans’ organisational activities indicate a wish to preserve and develop their culture. One North Korean woman said,

I’m positive about the relational change between North Korea and South Korea but at the same time I’m worried. We are refugees, but we are North Koreans. People are confused and think that we [North Korean defectors] all hate our country. We can miss our hometown but hate the North Korean government. When we say we don’t like North Korea, it is only because of the difficulties in daily life… I expect North Korea to become more affluent and powerful so that people do not have to defect to other countries. (A North Korean woman in her 30s, 15 January 2019)

She was addressing the misconception that since they had escaped from North Korea that they would reject all things North Korean. The social navigation of organisational activities was not just North Korean women’s response to political precarity but an attempt to preserve their culture. That their culture was so rarely seen put a spotlight on, for example, an amateur dance group that I observed in my participant observation of early-morning dance classes. Several North Korean women had joined to learn the steps to folk dances such as the rainbow dance, which owing to the swirl of shawls it appears as if the dancers’ dresses are continually changing throughout. Though in no way near so skilled as a professional group, they were invited to events such as the Kingston Korean Festival for their rarity. This case demonstrates the social and political activities based on North Korean ethnic networks in destination countries. They skirt political precarity by not engaging in political activities unlike the men, and as a consequence, women transitioned from precarity to empowerment smoothly even during times of political turbulence. Truth be told, women were less concerned about politics than the fact that their children had started speaking English in the home rather than Korean. They worried that this would create a language barrier and impede communication with their children, but worse than that, they saw it as their children losing their North Korean identity. One North Korean couple started inviting other children to their house and organised a children’s Korean language study group. Thanks to donations from a group of lawyers, the Gender, Place & Culture 17 study group developed into a North Korean language school that holds classes on Saturdays in a space rented from a local church. Their social navigation skills so critical to building a life despite political precarity were now necessary to ensure the success of the North Korean language school. As North Korean mothers coordinated taking care of children before classes and arranging snacks for the breaks, this formed ethnic networks based on guaranteeing their children’s education. Because several North Korean women had children at or around the same age, they would share their concerns with each other. They knew that they could rely on this support system of mothers to even just commiserate with would alleviate some of the stress. Except for a few members in positions of management in the school, men were not involved in the discussions on educational decisions. In most cases, fathers would drop their children off at the school and then leave without stopping to speak with either the other fathers or mothers. That women were making connections in the community as mothers and based on their caregiving occupations gave them a lifeline that their husbands don’t have. Involvement with the Korean language school was the perfect opportunity for women to emerge as key actors in the North Korean communities. Though they vowed that their actions had nothing to do with an interest in leading, their participation in school activities nonetheless contributed to individual women’s empowerment. The school contributed to the empowerment of the mothers of the children but the teachers too. One teacher at the school reminisced about her literature teacher when she was in high school in North Korea who inspired her to teach. This teacher taught that the revolution was not fought to please Kim Jong Eun but to give all Koreans a better life. She was so impressed by this concept that she has pondered the meaning of a good life ever since. After she came to the UK and started making money, her life improved financially but she felt that it was empty. It was only when the teaching job in the language school in New Malden came available that she realised becoming a teacher had always been her dream. The teaching job gave her life meaning, which she expected. She had not anticipated, however, the feeling of empowerment that came from being a link in networks supporting children’s education. As North Korean mothers in their capacity as caretakers accompanied their children to any Korean events they were invited to, this contributed to the reversal of gender roles as women took the lead in community events simply by their visibility. Knowing that they were viewed rather negatively, North Korean mothers dressed themselves and their children in the Hanbok, Korean traditional clothes. Rather than attempt to change minds through participation in the community, they allowed their children’s performances of the singing and dancing to build up a positive image. 18 H. SHIN

And children’s education was truly the sole focus of the teachers and mothers at the North Korean language school. But despite this being an apolitical institution, some South Koreans still opposed its inclusion at South Korean language school events, even the performances by North Korean children. This open hostility did not provoke North Korean mothers to retal- iate nor would they be drawn into a conflict, and if anything, they became more determinedly diplomatic. In fact, North Korean mothers and teachers resisted criticising the South Korean language school in return and went so far as to welcome South Korean children’s membership. Neither retaliating nor backing down, North Korean mothers held their ground with dignity, diffusing the situation and taking the power for themselves. When they attended meetings to discuss school matters, they concentrated on business and would not allow themselves to be distracted by personal issues. Their composed diplomacy and the source of their empowerment has roots in their experiences in North Korea. There, it is almost mandatory for women to be involved in organisational activities and attend public meetings, and from these involvements they learned how to comport themselves in professional settings. Remarkably, the hardships of their homeland had equipped these women with the social navigation skills to overcome financial and political precarity, build ethnic networks and face adversity with grace.

Conclusion According to intersectional theory, it can be argued that due to their ethnicity, gender and immigration status North Korean female defectors face multiple levels of discrimination. It can even be argued that the subject women’s own adaptive strategy reinforces restrictive gender roles rather than challenges them. But the findings of this research demonstrate that North Korean women’s adaptive attitudes are vital not only for their survival but for their empowerment. Understanding that they must be flexible to survive, North Korean women collaborate to build transnational ethnic networks (Lo 2016) without which they would not have access to much-needed information or receive support and inspiration (Ryan 2007; Teorell 2003). In regarding precarity in terms of double-edged nature of agency, traps and opportunities or victimization and empowerment, this research broadens our understanding of marginalised communities and the experiences of migrant women. Observing migrant women’s social navigation, set in motion by social forces and agency, reveals that the double-edged quality of precarity as a source of both threat and opportunity and their social activities result in unintentional empowerment. This paper’s theoretical contribution to future research lies in advancing a multi-faceted and ambivalent understanding of agency and empowerment, which encompasses traps and opportunities, discrimination and marginalisation as well as skills and networks. Gender, Place & Culture 19

The practical consequences of the social becoming are mutable and unpre- dictable and would require not only close attention but continuous moni- toring for change.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Funding

This research has been supported by the AMOREPACIFIC Foundation.

Notes on contributor

HaeRan Shin is a Professor in the Department of Geography at Seoul National University. She focuses on the areas of political geography and migrant studies. She has worked on the issues of transnational migrants and refugees, the dynamics of mobilities, and the territoriality of their networks and ethnic enclaves. She has also examined the politics of urban development cases, including culture-led urban regeneration, new towns, eco-cities, and risk perception. For her research on urban politics and migrant studies, she has used qualitative research methods including in-depth interviews, participant observations, focus groups, discourse analyses, and archival analyses. In recent years, she has focused on the transnational ethnic networks of North Korean defectors who live outside the Korean peninsula. She used to teach at University College London, and she started teaching in South Korea beginning September 2013.

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