By No Means Have They Been Completely Mellowed: Culture and the State on Chosŏn's Northern Border

Those who called the northern border of the Chosŏn kingdom (1392–1897) home were an amalgam of political exiles, runaway slaves, smugglers, miners, foragers, and everyday commoners eking out a living in some of the harshest conditions on the peninsula. Officials and other literati in Seoul considered these residents at the edge of the “civilized” world generally uncouth and overly fond of the military arts. This attitude had been fixed for centuries, but in the nineteenth century these perspectives were beginning to change. This talk will examine those processes and policies that marked this shift in perceptions of the border. Using gazetteers, diaries, and government records, we will explore the roles of development, official intervention, and private economy in bolstering the change. At the same time, this talk will question the ways that scholars talk about state actors and institutions to challenge the corporeality of the state.