본문 바로가기
  • Home
Basic Search

Living in Flight: Civilian Displacement, Suffering, and Relief during the Korean War, 1945~1953

  • The Review of Korean History
  • 2010, (100), pp.285-329
  • Publisher : The Historical Society Of Korea
  • Research Area : Humanities > History

Janice C. H. Kim 1

1York University

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this article is to provide an introductory overview of the broad contours of civilian migration during the war. Because the Korean War was part and parcel of the colonial past, the division of the peninsula, and the establishment of separate regimes, I define forced migration, or movement resulting from civil conflict, as a development that began in 1945 and ended in the mid 1950s. I examine the experiences of civilian migrants in the various stages of the conflict in hopes that surveying the structural differences encountered by the numerous groups of refugees will illuminate how war and disorder affected civilians during the war and after. First, I outline how anticipatory refugees were generated by liberation from Japanese colonization and the formation of the North and South Korean states. Second, I explore the conditions of those internally displaced from the outbreak of the war on June 25, 1950 to the recapturing of Seoul on September 28, 1950. Third, I elaborate on the circumstances of the acute refugees and internally displaced of the January 4th retreat including refugees from North Korea who began fleeing in November 1950 and residents of South Korea who evacuated their residences from mid-December 1950 to the early months of 1951. Fourth, I analyze the evacuee relief system: its policies, practices, and limits. Finally, I evaluate the conditions of war sufferers and the scale and meaning of reconstruction, resettlement, and the general impoverishment brought on by the war. In exploring the broad history of non-combatant movements and experiences, I hope to challenge and offer an alternative to popular understandings of refugees that often generalize what the Korean War meant to the civilian population.

Statistics

  • 280 Viewed
  • 1 Downloaded

Tools

Issue List

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

Basic Search Advanced Search