Trans-Border Rituals for the Dead: Experiential Knowledge of Paternal Relatives after the Jeju 4.3 Incident

Abstract:The purpose of the paper is to examine how relatives of deceased massacre victims have been memorialized and ritualized by paternal family members who experienced the Jeju 4.3 Incident. In particular, the paper elucidates how bereaved families scattered throughout Jeju and Osaka documented and pacified the deceased relatives within a ritual space. In doing so, the paper focuses on experiential knowledge and practices within the private sphere, which have been mediated by political and social circumstances. More specifically, the paper analyzes the significance of the removal or alteration of information within documents, such as census records, grave inscriptions, and declaration of victimhood reports. This allows for the examination of the production and operational mechanisms of each respective recording medium. The study also introduces examples of cross-national and cross-generational practices of posthumous rituals and ancestral rites. Through this, it will focus on the rehabilitation of close relatives who have floated in between and within public and private spheres. In conclusion, this paper argues that the memorialization and ritualization of tragic death and violent experiences functions as a coping strategy by bereaved families to survive within an oppressive political system.