Transnational mobility and human rights in the construction of wellbeing among North Korean forced migrants in the UK
Authors: Lim, H.-J.
Editors: Senz, A. and Kwon, J.
Publisher: Heidelberg University Press
Abstract:This chapter aims to explore the impact of North Korean defectors’ transnational mobility on their understanding and significance of human rights and its implications for their sense of wellbeing, and how multiple border-crossings have affected the construction of subjective wellbeing. The economic crisis of North Korea in the mid-1990s has driven an exponential rise of people escaping North Korea to China, South Korea and developed western countries, such as the UK, to find better lives and improve their wellbeing. In the process of multiple border-crossings, North Korean refugees started to learn about the term and notion of human rights based on individual freedom and dignity. However, critical engagement with human rights and activism beyond superficial knowledge of the concept mostly occurred when they came to the UK, which they perceived as a country that highly upholds individual human rights. This development led to shifts in their sense of wellbeing and the construction of a meaningful life beyond meeting the basic physical and economic needs that initially drove most of the escapees to leave their country. Autonomy, personal growth, and purpose in life (Kim and Lindeman, 2020) became important aspects of their sense of wellbeing. For instance, the interviewees who were involved in human rights activism expressed their sense of happiness and satisfaction stemming from fulfilling their duty for other North Koreans who remain in North Korea. In this sense, their subjective wellbeing entailed eudemonic wellbeing (the meaning and purpose of life), along with hedonic wellbeing (everyday feelings of happiness, sadness, etc.) (Steptoe et al., 2015; Kim and Lindeman, 2020).
Additionally, their aspirations to achieve a particular mode of wellbeing were affected by their lived experiences in receiving countries and their treatment towards these migrants. Linking to this, the capabilities approach taken by Nussbaum (2011) is useful in understanding wellbeing and the role of functioning. However, I argue that the capabilities approach is limited in analysing transnational migrants’ experiences and their fluid characteristics. Along with the capabilities approach, the human rights-based framework enables the researchers and scholars to analyse contingent and shifting, multiple layers of wellbeing, together with critical awareness of human rights and their role in their lives for forced migrants. The human rights-based framework allows the examination of how mobilities have mediated the construction of wellbeing for North Korean forced migrants shaped by multiple intersecting factors, including their temporal-spatial, socio-cultural, political, economic, and individual circumstances. Inspired by Gough et al., (2006), this study conceptualises wellbeing as an ongoing process influenced by the social, economic, cultural, and political processes and relations of everyday living.
Source: Manual