Cultural Identity and Securitising the Korean Peninsula: Transformations in the South Korean Security Narrative

Abstract

The paper discusses South Korea's ‘brand Korea’ initiative and the impact of cultural transformations on the South Korean national security narrative. The paper considers the practices of identity and security representation in South Korea and outlines how cultural transformations in a country which has built its national security on an assumption of racial and ethnic homogeneity are affecting relations between South and North Korea. The paper argues that these issues can be explored through a critical geopolitics perspective and that the key relationship resides in the narratives and representations of threat and ‘the foreigner.’ The paper discusses critical geopolitics within a non-Western context and explores how cultural transformations are creating new narratives and new representations of the relationship between foreigner, national identity and national security.