Researcher | Center for Latin American Studies
Seoul National University
Boyeong Kim earned her Ph.D. in Latin American and Latino Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz, specializing in transpacific economic imaginaries, memory politics, and citizen-making in Asia and Latin America. Working across cultural studies and social science methodologies, her research examines how neoliberal policies shape citizenship and national identity across the Pacific. Kim is currently working on a book manuscript that critically compares how memory politics that glorify economic achievement since authoritarian rule have shaped gendered and racialized neoliberal citizenship in South Korea and Chile. She has designed and taught courses on critical international development and Latin American and Latino studies.
“Blood Alliance” for (Market) Freedom:
The Korean War’s Afterlife in the Transpacific Economic Fantasy and Post-conflict Nation-building in South Korea–Colombia Relations
Abstract
This article examines the ideological implications of framing Colombia’s participation in the Korean War as the foundational moment in contemporary South Korea-Colombia “strategic partnership.” Through analysis of diplomatic narratives, transpacific trade policies, and development cooperation initiatives, I argue that both nations’ Pacific-oriented strategies have entailed nation-building efforts centered on neoliberal alignment, mobilizing the hegemonic account of the Korean War as a victorious struggle for “freedom and democracy.” South Korea has leveraged its “development knowledge,” which tacitly endorses anticommunist dictatorial violence, as exchange currency for accessing Colombian resources and markets.
The focus on sharing reintegration strategies for North Korean migrants with Colombia grappling with rehabilitating ex-guerrillas exemplifies how the wartime “blood alliance” extends into neoliberal citizen-making. Concurrently, Colombia’s Pacific pivot, including its 2016 FTA with South Korea, unfolded in tandem with peace negotiations and the promotion of an image of a conflict-free, investable nation. This economization of peace in Colombia’s transpacific strategy aligns with post-conflict nation-building efforts with a pro-market identity, to which the invocation of the Korean War has provided seamless ideological rhetoric.
