Women Divers Resisting Oppression: A Brief History of Jeju Divers and Their Representations in North Korea’s Literature, Performance Art, and Screen Culture

Abstract: This article interrogates the history of North Korean encounters—historical and discursive—with Jeju’s unique “women divers” ( haenyŏ , alternatively known as “sea women”). Since the colonial days (1910–1945), Jeju Island was exceptional in that much of the socioeconomic and political struggles there were led by women divers, a highly organized group of skilled workers whose contribution to the island’s economy was crucial. Divers continued to display their agency after the 1945 Liberation as well, playing a prominent role in the April Third Jeju Uprising of 1948. Migratory workers since colonial days, women divers used to travel to Japan for work, and some of them stayed in various Japanese localities, Tsushima included, even after the Liberation. Ca. ten divers’ households moved from Tsushima to North Korea in the early 1960s as a part of Zainichi Koreans’ “repatriation movement.” Concurrent with this development, North Korean arts and literature began to focus very strongly on women divers’ revolutionary contributions. In these ideologized artistic descriptions, the portrayals of Jeju divers in anti-colonial and anti-American struggles spotlighted women’s own initiative and agency. These portrayals assumedly reflected the economic importance and social centrality of women divers in Jeju life, as well as their exceptionally strong autonomy from male-dominated groups and institutions.