Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-11T07:32:55.763Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - Researching North Korean Women’s Human Rights: Methodological Considerations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2024

Hyun-Joo Lim
Affiliation:
Bournemouth University
Get access

Summary

Introduction

Researching North Korean refugees raises numerous methodological questions due to their acute vulnerabilities and the extreme conditions they face. Fundamentally, it challenges the ontological and epistemological approaches of positivism. The contestation over what is considered to be ‘truthful’ and ‘valid’ data in association with North Korean defectors’ stories is an indication of such a condition. In light of these concerns, in this chapter I discuss methodological considerations in depth, focusing in particular on the challenges of studying North Korean women defectors and their human rights issues.

I start with a discussion on phenomenology, which is a foundational philosophical underpinning of my research, especially hermeneutic (or interpretive) phenomenology. Next, the discussion progresses into life history in connection with phenomenology. After establishing the philosophical foundations and method, I examine access to and recruitment of the participants during different phases of the research. In the ensuing section, I present the feminist approach that I take to this research in order to centre the voices of the participants, while reducing the distance between researcher and participant. Additionally, I discuss some of the challenges that I experienced as a researcher of South Korean heritage researching North Korean women defectors, applying critical reflection. This is followed by an exploration of the social construction of truth and validity in the final part of the chapter.

Phenomenological understanding

This study takes a phenomenological approach to exploring the life stories of North Korean women defectors; in particular, I apply hermeneutic phenomenology, as originating in the work of Martin Heidegger (2005 [1994], 2019 [1962]). Phenomenology is a research method that aims to understand the subjective perceptions and experiences of the individual by exploring a phenomenon from their own perspectives (Knaack, 1984; Welman and Kruger, 1999; Groenewald, 2004; Neubauer et al, 2019). Thus, it is efficacious when challenging normative suppositions, which are largely created by dominant social groups (Watson, 1976).

Edmund Husserl founded phenomenology as a critical social scientific research method, which disputed positivism. His transcendental phenomenology was established ‘not as a science of facts, but as a science of essential Being (as “eidetic” Science): a science which aims exclusively at establishing “knowledge of essences” ‘ (Husserl, 2012 [1931], p 3).

Type
Chapter
Information
North Korean Women and Defection
Human Rights Violations and Activism
, pp. 40 - 66
Publisher: Bristol University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×