The impact of symbolic boundaries on perceptions of relations between Japan and South Korea

ABSTRACT

This paper argues the perceptions of relations between two nations involve not only the institutionalized national-boundary but also the perspectives of multiple symbolic boundaries. Based on a qualitative study, this paper aims to explain how different symbolic boundaries impact Japanese experts’ perception of interrelations between Japan and the Republic of Korea (South Korea). The paper includes an analysis of opinion surveys, 20 semi-structured interviews with experts, and three focus group interviews with university students of Peace Studies Departments conducted throughout June and July of 2018 in Tokyo, Japan. These results advance existing scholarship by showing that Japanese experts use the following four symbolic boundaries to comprehend relations between Japan and South Korea: boundaries between (1) victims and perpetrators; (2) ‘the West’ and the Asian cultural and political space; (3) nationalistic and peaceful countries; and (4) a state and people.

KEYWORDS:

• Social identity
• social boundary
• conflict
• Japan
• South Korea

Disclosure statement

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

Notes on contributors

Karina V. Korostelina is a Professor and Director of the Program on Prevention of Mass Violence and the Program on History, Memory, and Conflict at the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, GMU. Professor Korostelina is a social psychologist whose work focuses on social identity and dynamics of identity and power in protracted social conflicts. Dr. Korostelina has been a Fulbright New Century Scholar, fellow at the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Writing Fellow. She also has been awarded a number of residential fellowships, including Isaac Manasseh Meyer Fellowship at the University of Singapore, East-West Center, the Institute for Advanced Studies at Waseda University, the Northeast Asia History Foundation, the Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research, and the Curriculum Resource Center of the Central European University. She has received 40 grants supporting her research. She is an author or editor of 16 books and over 90 articles.

Yuji Uesugi is a professor at the School of International Liberal Studies, Waseda University (Japan). His current research focus includes security sector reform, civil-military relationship and international peace operations, and he has mainly covered the issues of peace and conflict in Asia, such as Afghanistan, Timor-Leste, Cambodia and Aceh (Indonesia). While being an active member of academia, he is recognized as a reflective practitioner. He has been dispatched as an international election observer to various post-conflict elections in Cambodia, Timor-Leste and Indonesia. As a deputy executive director at the Okinawa Peace Assistance Center (Japan), he currently leads a grass-root technical cooperation project of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by IAS Waseda University [WIAS Visiting Researchers 2018].