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Abstract
This paper critically examines three intersectional hegemonic forces of maintaining a surveillance regime-the triad of colonialism, anti-communism, and neo-liberalism-that I argue are necessary for decolonizing surveillance studies in South Korea. I discuss South Korea's Resident Registration System (RRS) as the contemporary incarnation of modem colonial power's control over its colonial subjects, calling into question the maintenance of the colonial legacies within RRS policy innovations. I critically examine the way in which the legitimacy of neo-liberal surveillance is embraced by the anti-privacy scheme entrenched in the colonial and anti-communism legacies that relentlessly allows state power to control and intervene in individual realms. Questioning the triad of colonialism, anti-communism, and neo-liberalism can recast a critical work for decolonizing surveillance studies in South Korea.
Decolonizing South Korea's Surveillance Regime
As Payal Arora (2018) aptly suggests, decolonizing surveillance studies requires exploring the historical specificities of the emergence, deployment, and justification of a surveillance regime. As a nation-state saddled with legacies from Japanese colonial rule (1910-1945), South Korea has developed rigorously ideological surveillance apparatuses. Among them, the Resident Registration System (RRS), as the de facto sole method of verifying legal identity in South Korea, has been paid particular attention by scholars (Kim 2007; Na 2014). This paper critically examines three intersectional hegemonic forces of maintaining a surveillance regime-the triad of colonialism, anti-communism, and neo-liberalism-that I argue are necessary for decolonizing surveillance studies in South Korea.
I want to suggest that the RRS also needs to be illuminated in a shift of the modalities of surveillance that maintains and reinforces the persistent neo-liberal restructuring of the South Korean banking, insurance, and information technology industries. In what follows, to disentangle the interlocking contexts of colonialism, anti-communism, and neo-liberalism within South Korea's surveillance regime, first, I discuss South Korea's RRS as the contemporary incarnation of modem colonial power's control over its colonial subjects, calling into question the maintenance of the colonial legacies within RRS policy innovations. I then investigate the way in which the promise of security is compromised in the RRS, along the lines of the controversial legitimacy of surveillance in neo-liberal restructuring of the South Korean data-driven economy, where biometric information stored in the RRS invariably serves as a key surveillance technique.
Colonial Legacies for Anti-Communist Control over the...