Imagining Korean unification, people and state

Unification is proclaimed as the national mission by both Koreas and forms the bedrock for the south’s political legitimacy. However, this national mission holds increasing disenchantment among south Koreans today. The weakening of ethnic sentiments, the rise of a new nationalism and the pressures of everyday life see unification peripheralised among the public. Given current President Moon’s unprecedented steps towards confederation, this thesis explores how unification is imagined by south Koreans in Seoul and the state’s role therein. It is based on ethnographic methods of participant observation and semi-structured interviews with south Koreans and north Korean refugee-defectors. Using an historicist and hermeneutic approach to analyse and problematise political imaginaries around unification, this thesis addresses: a) the state’s predicament in accounting for shifting national sentiments when crafting its unification pitch; and, b) how the south Korean people - dissonantly stirred by ethnic sentiments but increasingly apathetic to unification due to its fiscal costs and potential refugee influx - reconcile this ambivalence. Ultimately, this thesis will provide an interpretation of the inner worlds of a prima facie unwavering national mission. Although the latter seems to be becoming increasingly closer under President Moon, it is – in fact – unimaginable after more than seventy years of division.