Paper short abstract:

I propose a paper that examines the changes in Korean DMZ tourism over the last two decades in the context of the end of the Cold War and the development of neoliberal border regimes.

Paper long abstract:

As evidenced by the clichés of the 'Iron Curtain' or 'Bamboo Wall', the persistence of the Cold War had much to do with border infrastructure. However, as the fall of the Berlin Wall symbolised the end of the Cold War (cf. Kwon 2008), the meaning of border structure became more flexible and elusive, negating simple binary dichotomies such as the closing/opening of borders. It also meant that borders were transformed from imagined geopolitical lines of separation maintained by military forces into infrastructures administered by different entities. Therefore, the growing 'crisis' of borders between North and South actually means the crisis of control of border infrastructures (De Genova 2017), justifying more sophisticated surveillance of migrant crossings at sea and in the desert, supported by smart border technologies. Against this backdrop, the Korean DMZ provides us with an interesting case not only as a military infrastructure (rogue infrastructure, according to Eleana Kim 2019) in the persistence of the Cold War geopolitical order in northeast Asia but also as an unspoiled 'ecological paradise' carrying the potential for the development. In short, the Korean DMZ is caught between unending Cold War and neoliberal frontier regime. The Korean DMZ tourism is operated in such tensions and contradictions Based on my fieldwork research in the DMZ area in recent years and also examination of the history of the DMZ are, I would like to present how such tensions and contradictions are played out in the various DMZ tourist programs.