2024, Vol.31, No.2

Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 0.61

pISSN : 1225-8539 / eISSN : 2671-5171
https://journal.kci.go.kr/japs

The purpose of this study is to identify classes of social adaptation among married North Korean refugee women in South Korea using the latent profile analysis and to predict factors influencing each class of social adaptation. Latent profile analysis is a research methodology aimed at discerning and categorizing diverse subgroups within a given population based on specific variables. Departing from the conventional variable-centered approach, this research adopts a person-centered approach. To achieve this, a survey was conducted targeting North Korean female refugees aged 20 to 70 predominantly residing in Seoul and Gyeonggi-do Province. The analysis revealed three distinctive social adaptation profiles: the ‘stable class (27.0%)’, demonstrating a high degree of adaptation across all spheres; the ‘friendly class (42.5%)’, characterized by friendliness in interpersonal relationships; and the ‘restricted class (30.5%)’, experiencing difficulties in all areas of social adaptation. Multinomial regression analysis identified factors predicting social adaptation classes. Age and perceived discrimination were more inclined to characterize the ‘friendly class’ in contrast to the ‘stable class’, whereas age, life satisfaction, perceived discrimination, and social support emerged as factors predisposing individuals to the ‘restricted class’ relative to the ‘stable class’. Based on these findings, this study offered discussions and alternative strategies for enhancing the social adaptation of married North Korean refugee women.

As the natural ecological environment is rapidly changing due to the melting of the Arctic caused by global climate change, the geopolitical, ecological environmental science, and socio-economic values of the Arctic region are being newly evaluated. Arctic experts define these changes in the Arctic environment that have occurred in recent years as ‘transformative change’. These changes were caused by indiscriminate development by the private and public sectors, and in particular, rapid climate change in the Arctic region further promoted global warming, leading to destruction of the ecological environment due to the destruction of frozen ground. Therefore, the Arctic indigenous people who had been conducted economic activities based on nature faced a crisis of survival. The “innovative changes” in the “Arctic” environment caused by climate change and environmental destruction have implications for the politics, economy, society, culture, and ecological environment of the “New Arctic”, which are clearly different from Arctic research that focused on security issues during the Cold War. We need a new paradigm for Arctic research. In this paper, we aim to provide implications for responding to climate change by illuminating the sustainable development of indigenous people through a case study in the Arctic region from the perspective of international environmental law. The cases of Russia and Japan in this paper present a strategic response on how to systematically overcome the climate crisis and the pressure of development, and this further provides important guidelines for appropriately responding to the crisis of climate change by protecting biological diversity.

This article aims to reconsider the meaning of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the context of the recent ruling in Japan regarding the Ainu people’s losing the legal battle over exclusive fishing rights against Hokkaido and the Japanese government, based on the environmental and historical background. First, the environmental context of the case is deeply linked to rising water temperatures and declining fish stocks due to climate change and historically linked to the Japanese government’s arbitrary and violent industrial restrictions and colonization since the 13th century. The Japanese government recognizes the indigenous rights of the Ainu in the context of sustainable development, which is a global issue. However, the recent ruling to reject the Ainu’s claim lawsuit reveals that the Japanese government is very conservative and centralized in economic terms (as opposed to language and traditional culture). The ultimate goal of multiculturalism is not to simply lock indigenous peoples in the past and use them as tourist resources. The loss of the Ainu people’s lawsuit for exclusive fishing rights not only illustrates the barriers between cultural identity and autonomous economic rights, but also points the way toward the idea that true indigenous rights must include political and economic independence.