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III. Capter et transformer les morts – Capture and Transform the Dead

Memory Politics of Mass Graves and Commemoration: Korea’s Cheju April 3rd Incident

Politiques de mémoire des fosses communes et commémorations des « événements » du 3 avril à Cheju en Corée
한국 제주4.3사건의 암매장과 위령의 기억정치
Seong Nae Kim
p. 153-186

Abstracts

This article enquires into questions of state violence, cultural trauma, commemoration, and memory politics with respect to the Cheju April 3rd Incident or “the 4.3” (1947-1954), which is regarded as the precursor of the Korean War. After the Special Law for Investigation of the Truth about the Cheju April 3 Incident was established in 2000 by the government, “the 4.3” was officially recognized as a case of state violence and civilian massacres. Due to long-term enforced silence and suppression of “the 4.3 memory,” however, the divergence between state memory and local individuated memory has created conflict over the identity of the victims of mass killing, the commemoration of the event, and the complex politics of postmemory. Drawing on Hirsch’s concept of “postmemory” (the type of inter-generational memory that mediates the past memory in its affective force), this paper explores the way in which this divergence is mediated in commemoration rituals of ancestor worship and reburial of dead bodies exhumed from mass graves. As material evidence of mass killing and its affective presence, the remains “animate” political action for moral judgement about responsibility for massacres. Placing the dead in a proper family tomb or public enshrinement hall shared with other mass dead in the 4.3 Peace Park becomes the most significant concerns of the bereaved families. It shows how state involvement in the management of remains and ancestral veneration custom continues to exert an influence on the surviving families of the dead as well as the victims of the 4.3. In opposition to the structural state intervention, there persisted a community action that continually repaired the loss of social relations and restored communal history through creating the children’s collective grave and family cemetery and inventing island-wide shamanic rituals in the public sphere. In this article, we witness the community of death and loss, which is newly formed through cultural trauma and restorative justice in the post-atrocity era.

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Excerpt

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Outline

Introduction: The Cheju April 3rd Incident and State Violence
The Work of Post-memory and Ritual Mediations
Placing the Dead: Mass Graves and Memorials
Mass Graves: “Deaths Without Bodies or Coffins”
Forensic Exhumation and Commemoration: Re-assemblage of the Dead
Moral Agency of the Exhumed Remains
The Pukch’on-ri Massacre and Place-making for the Dead: Restorative Justice
Children’s Graves: Provisional Burial
Conclusion: Community of Loss after Atrocity

First lines

Introduction: The Cheju April 3rd Incident and State Violence

This article enquires into questions of state violence and practices of post-memory with respect to the Cheju April 3rd Incident (1947-1954), which is regarded as the precursor of the Korean War, one of the first outbreaks of the violent ideological conflict during the global Cold War. Historically and politically, Cheju Island, which is located on the periphery of the Asia-Pacific and the Cold War, has been considered a site of strategic importance, and, hence, has had a continued military presence over the years. At the end of the Pacific War, Cheju was set up as the frontline of the Japanese militaries in their defense against the American landing. After the World War II, Cheju was under the authority of the American occupation government (1945-1948).

The Cheju April 3rd Incident is known as the ‘4.3 Incident,’ or sasam sakkŏn, or just ‘4.3’ which is named after the date of its initial occurrence on April 3rd in 1948, wh...

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References

Bibliographical reference

Seong Nae Kim, “Memory Politics of Mass Graves and Commemoration: Korea’s Cheju April 3rd Incident”Extrême-Orient Extrême-Occident, 47 | 2024, 153-186.

Electronic reference

Seong Nae Kim, “Memory Politics of Mass Graves and Commemoration: Korea’s Cheju April 3rd Incident”Extrême-Orient Extrême-Occident [Online], 47 | 2024, Online since 01 January 2027, connection on 10 July 2025. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/extremeorient/3187; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/12ko3

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About the author

Seong Nae Kim

Kim Seong Nae is a Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at Sogang University in South Korea. Her first book in Korean language, Han’guk mugyo ŭi munhwa Illyuhak [Cultural Anthropology of Korean Shamanism] (Seoul, Sonamu, 2018) was awarded the 2020 Yim Sok-jae Prize in anthropology. Her recent publications include an article, “Placing the Dead in the Postmemory of the Cheju Massacre in Korea” (Journal of Religion, 2019), book chapters “Cultural Trauma and the Cheju Massacre in Transnational Perspective” (in Tina Burrett et Jeff Kingston [eds.], Routledge Handbook of Trauma in East Asia, New York, Routledge, 2023) and “Memory Politics and a Women’s Sphere Countering Historical Violence in Korea” (in Jelke Boesten et Helen Scanlon [eds.], Gender, Transitional Justice and Memorial Arts, New York, Routledge, 2021). Her book manuscript on cultural memory and commemoration of the Cheju April 3 Incident is in progress.
Kim Seong Nae est professeur émérite d’études religieuses à l’université Sogang en Corée du Sud. Son premier livre en langue coréenne, Han’guk mugyo ŭi munhwa illyuhak [Anthropologie Culturelle du chamanisme coréen] (Seoul, Sonamu, 2018), a reçu en 2020 le prix Yim Sok-jae en anthropologie. Parmi ses récentes publications figurent l’article « Placing the Dead in the Postmemory of the Cheju Massacre in Korea » (Journal of Religion, 2019), plusieurs chapitres d’ouvrages collectifs comme « Cultural Trauma and the Cheju Massacre in Transnational Perspective » (in Tina Burrett et Jeff Kingston [dir.], Routledge Handbook of Trauma in East Asia, New York, Routledge, 2023) et « Memory Politics and a Women’s Sphere Countering Historical Violence in Korea » (in Jelke Boesten et Helen Scanlon [dir.], Gender, Transitional Justice and Memorial Arts, New York, Routledge, 2021). Le manuscrit de son prochain livre sur la mémoire culturelle et la commémoration de l’incident du 3 avril à Cheju est en cours de préparation.

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Copyright

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The text only may be used under licence CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. All other elements (illustrations, imported files) are “All rights reserved”, unless otherwise stated.

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