Paper short abstract:

This presentation considers the activism of the bereaved families of the Sewol Ferry Disaster in Korea, and their ethical and political striving for accountability and justice in the face of demoralization, and waning hope.

Paper long abstract:

The 2014 sinking of MV Sewol incited a widespread social movement in South Korea, founded upon condolence for the victims, guilt in having condoned corrupt power structures that failed the citizens, and collective determination that ‘things had to change’. Based on 15 months of ethnographic fieldwork, I reflect on the activism of the bereaved family members of the Sewol Disaster, who have been calling for investigation into the sinking, as well as justice for the victims for the past eight years. In particular, I consider the impetus for their continued political activism, even in the face of waning public interest and disappointment in the state which has failed to deliver its promise of truth and justice; I deliberate why it might be that they continue the work they often see as extremely taxing, without a foreseeable guarantee of a hopeful turn. Situating my interlocutors’ activism within the anthropology of ethics, I push for an understanding of ethics not just in relation to projects of and on the self, but in conversation with affective and ethical entanglements –– articulated through guilt and obligation –– between the deceased and the bereaved, as well as with the structural and political conditions that might mold, challenge, and/or impede the aspirations of our interlocutors.