Leisure Spaces and Leisure Activities in Pyongyang, North Korea

Manon Prud'homme (1, 2)

1 EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales
2 CCJ - Chine, Corée, Japon

Pyongyang has long been perceived and described by western media as a place where consumerism is non-existent (report of John Sweeney and BBC, 2013) and where leisure activities are organized and controlled by the socialist regime as in the People’s Republic of China under Mao Zedong or during the existence of the USSR (Moskoff, 1984i). Since Kim Jong Un has been in office in 2012, North Korean political discourse has changed, placing economic development at the heart of the state’s priorities for the future, through the byungjin line (병진노선). Thus, big projects have promoted domestic tourism not only in Pyongyang but in developing regions such as the Wonsan-Kalma Coastal Tourist Area and Masikryong Ski Resort on the east coast. In contrast with Kim Jong Il’s “army first politics” (선군청치), Kim Jong Un focuses on developing the national economy and leisure parks are a part of North Korea’s process of modernization. In this context, Pyongyang’s cityscape has been deeply transformed with the construction of new residential districts in the historical downtown area. Simultaneously, the development of great amusement parks such as Munsu Water Park or the Rungna People’s Pleasure Ground are promoted by the Korean Central News Agency and other organs of state propaganda. However, making social sciences in North Korea is a continuous paradox researchers have to face (Gelézeau, 2015). Research in the social sciences are still sensitive subjects due to restrictions within the country; the inability to conduct interviews, the lack of freedom (speech and movement) and the constant monitoring are the biggest barrier to understanding North Korean society. This paper will present how the use of a qualitative and multifaceted methodology combining the reading of primary sources (a corpus of 242 KCNA dispatches pertaining to leisure parks, collected from 1998 to 2019), the use of cartographic tools (OSM data, Google Earth, ArcGIS, InkScape) and participant observations permitted by my position as the organizer of student language training with a French scientific association of Korean studies (Revue Tangun) permitted the study of both the development of leisure parks since Kim Jong Un has been in office and the citizen’s activities within leisure spaces. How does such a study aid the understanding the economic and social changes in North Korean society? Through the analysis of leisure parks’ functional aspects, how can we discuss the appearance of a new upper middle class in Pyongyang? To what extent is the term “consumerism”, in a capitalist sense applicable to North Korea? This paper will answer these questions and others, first presenting a typology of leisure parks in Pyongyang based on a cartographic work with data collected during the authors’ field visits to Pyongyang. Then, the author will draw on the methodological practices of participant observation made in various leisure facilities to discuss the leisure practices of Pyongyang’s citizenry.

Mots clés: North Korea; Leisure parks; Geography

Domaines: Géographie

Manon Prud'homme. Leisure Spaces and Leisure Activities in Pyongyang, North Korea. 30th AKSE Conference 2021, Oct 2021, La Rochelle, France. ⟨halshs-04067842⟩