Social (Im)mobility and Bureaucratic Failings: Family Background and the Sŏngbun System in North Korea

IF 0.7 3区 社会学 0 ASIAN STUDIES
Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Abstract:This article argues that North Korea's system for family background registration, sŏngbun, has historically been more complex than commonly believed. Using oral testimonies, it shows that the registration process, as seen from a grassroots perspective, involved and likely still involves a great deal of social turmoil. The essay focuses on the period before the famine of the 1990s, often not sufficiently investigated in scholarship on North Korean society. The sŏngbun registration process, by contrast, constitutes a chaotic, messy chapter in North Korean social history, calling the narrative of stability into question. The article also situates North Korea in the broader history of state-building, showing that attempts by states to classify the population and make it legible often involve a great deal of chaos, flaws, and dynamic change. Cataloging the population along the lines of political order was not merely a project of sheer repression but also one of scientific, rational, and forward-looking state-building. Although some citizens manipulated the process to their benefit, several interviewees attested to worse outcomes due to bureaucratic mistakes and reinvestigations of their sŏngbun by the state.
社会流动性和官僚主义的失败:朝鲜的家庭背景和Sŏngbun制度
摘要:本文认为,朝鲜的家庭背景登记制度sŏngbun在历史上比人们通常认为的要复杂得多。通过口供可以看出,从基层的角度看,户籍登记过程涉及并可能仍然涉及大量的社会动荡。这篇文章关注的是20世纪90年代饥荒之前的一段时期,在研究朝鲜社会的学术研究中,这段时期往往没有得到充分的研究。相比之下,sŏngbun的注册过程构成了朝鲜社会历史上混乱的一章,让人对稳定的叙述产生了质疑。这篇文章还将朝鲜置于更广泛的国家建设历史中,表明国家对人口进行分类并使其易于辨认的尝试往往涉及大量的混乱、缺陷和动态变化。按照政治秩序对人口进行分类不仅是一个纯粹的镇压项目,也是一个科学、理性和前瞻性的国家建设项目。虽然一些公民为了自己的利益操纵了这个过程,但一些受访者证明,由于官僚主义的错误和国家对他们的sŏngbun的重新调查,结果更糟。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
0.60
自引率
0.00%
发文量
23
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