Everyday life in the Korean border: frontier village as a device for counter-appropriation

ABSTRACT This paper examines spatial practices in the everyday life of the villagers in a South Korean border village. Focusing on the Yugokri Unification Village in Cheorwon, the paper analyses the residents’ spatial actions as a lens to study how the villagers cope with the volatile border. It reveals highly intricate and discrete ways the residents use the space of the frontier village as a platform, despite high levels of control imposed by the state, for their struggles against the authoritarian vision by developing, augmenting and enhancing their spaces around them in their everyday life.