This research investigates how North Korean adolescent refugees experience territorial and sociocultural boundaries as they undergo the process of migration. The process of North Korean adolescents’ departing from spatial, social, and cultural territories of North Korea, entering into those of China or a third country, and settling in South Korea is interpreted in this research as a process of cross-boundary experience. As boundaries, by its very nature, differentiate oneself from others, boundary crossing inevitably entails a reconstruction of identity. This research explores how North Korean adolescent refugees experience and react to various boundaries, and how these experiences influence the process of growing into adults as well as the reconstruction of their identities. This research defines adolescents broadly as those who are in their mid-teens to mid-twenties. The target group are North Korean adolescents and adults who have, in their adolescent years, traveled from North Korea to China, from China to South Korea via a third country, from South Korea to North America or Europe. In the process of remigration to South Korea, they will have experienced various socio-cultural boundaries associated with crossing spatial boundaries. The scope of analysis is presented in the following picture. In order to understand North Korean adolescent refugees and the process of their identity formation in entering adulthood, one needs to be aware of the numerous boundaries they face. They have not merely crossed a physical boundary from North to South Korea. Their crossboundary experiences are social, cultural, and also symbolic. While they experience numerous boundaries in their journey, they also create new boundaries in their behaviors and minds. In this context, boundaries can be likened to veins that constitute their identities. Therefore, their cross-boundary experiences cannot be simplified as a mere case of crossing state borders or nationalities. From this perspective, in studying how cross-boundary experiences shape one’s identity, it is necessary to question the complex relationship among one’s biographical and present context, the implications of their cultural practices, and the desires or institutions that make crossing state borders possible.1)“In recent years, the idea of ‘boundaries’ has come to play a key role in important new lines of scholarship across the social sciences. It has been associated with research on cognition, social and collective identity, commensuration, census categories, cultural capital, cultural membership, racial and ethnic group positioning, hegemonic masculinity, professional jurisdictions, scientific controversies, group rights, immigration, and contentious politics, to mention only some of the most visible examples.”2) The number of boundaries that can be experienced are innumerable; from daily boundaries which restrict a social group or individual’s freedom of movement and communication; to political and geographic boundaries of “state borders”; to representative “boundaries” as a habitus that reveals the cultural or class differences; and to imagined boundaries that affect the subconscious and conscious minds of the members of society. Furthermore, these boundaries also expand/contract, or combine/divide depending on the circumstances or the position of those faced with the cross-boundary experience.3)From the perspective of an individual’s cross-boundary experience, boundaries can be considered as a physical and social reality made up of complex signs and symbols, institutions and common sense, and science and standards which reveal their existence and form who they are. “Boundaries are therefore both symbols and manifestations of power relations and social institutions, and they become part of daily life in diverging institutional practices.”4) In order to understand an individual, it is necessary to observe the boundaries that operate in his/her physical and psychological self. Conversely, in order to understand a society, it is necessary to grasp the modus operandi of various boundaries that form the reality of the society’s members. When we refer to a specific person as a “North Korean adolescent refugee,” the term “North Korean refugee” already designates them with a certain identity and also requires them to behave in a certain way. Thus, they become swept into an institution corresponding to language. Boundaries become a vehicle which “coordinates” appropriate linguistic system accompanied by corresponding legal and institutional realities. Therefore, boundaries are cognitive, communicative, and politically multi-tiered. This is because boundaries are systems which enable human to cognize objects and communicate, and are of a political nature bifurcating between the inside and the outside, the internal and the external, and the exclusive and the inclusive. Observing North Korean adolescent refugees from the perspective of “boundaries” means to observe how their identity is formed or forced through their cross-boundary experiences. A “boundary” is the separation of an object in physical, symbolic, or conceptual terms. It separates states and communities, differentiates “us” from “them,” thereby acting as factors constituting identities and groups. Boundaries are “the ‘points of contact or separation,’ and ‘usually creates an ‘us’ and an ‘other’ identity.’”5) Boundaries pose the permanent question of what defines “us” and “others” who exist beyond the boundary. Therefore, boundaries not only exist along state borders or national community, but also exist in society among various ethnic or cultural communities, or between the mainstream who enjoy their vested rights and the minority who are often marginalized.6)This study observes North Korean adolescent refugees’ experience of leaving North Korea and entering South Korea via China or a third country. Their experience of different spatial, social, and cultural territories will be considered as a cross-boundary process. This study reviews their spatial and socio-cultural cross-boundary experiences. This research is based on in-depth interviews with 49 North Korean adolescent refugees who left North Korea from 1998 to 2012. Out of the 49 refugees, 37 have lived in South Korea for periods ranging from two to fifteen years; three have migrated abroad via South Korea, and nine have entered a foreign country directly from North Korea. Most of the interview subjects have defected and experienced spatial boundary crossing during their adolescent years. The researchers have come into contact with some of the North Korean adolescent refugees after 2009 while conducting various research projects. Numerous interviews which were conducted over a period of time were analysed so as to grasp how the duration of residence changed one’s experience and identity. In order to understand the general context of North Korean adolescent refugees who migrated abroad, in-depth interviews were also partially conducted on adult North Korean refugees who have migrated abroad. Besides the in-depth interviews, short-term participant observations were made by visiting the living spaces of North Korean adolescent defectors such as the shelters for North Korean adolescent refugees. Especially, researchers conducted participant observations on North Korean refugee camps and living spaces residing for several months with links between the international networks that support North Korean refugees settlement.

1. Introduction 2. Crossing Physical Boundaries and Spatial Experience 3. Experience of Cross-Cultural Boundaries and Its Reconstruction 4. Experience of Social Boundaries and Reconstruction of Identities 5. Reconstruction of Citizenship through Separation and Crossing Boundaries 6. Growth and Identity Reconstruction through Cross-Boundary Experiences 7. Conclusion