Thirteenth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

The heralding of the golden age of globalization highlights success stories from East Asia; Japan in the Meiji Era, South Korea’s Miracle on the Han River, and China’s rise as an economic bulwark. The glaring exception in this region is North Korea, which is so opposed to integration it is colloquially known as the Hermit Kingdom. But even this inward-looking state is subject to globalizing processes. Emerging information has depicted an unprecedented phenomena alluding to this; women are becoming the family’s breadwinners. This regional shift comes from a very unlikely source with potentially far-reaching implications. Feminist and International Political Economy literature have separately attempted to relate women’s economic roles to existing social relations. By combining their theoretical frameworks, a more holistic approach of the way(s) gender operates in economic discourse appears. Applying this mixed framework to the case study of North Korea illuminates how social practices can be relational and/or causal to economic practices, and what this could mean for more equitable gender relations.