【Webinar Report】 Fraternal Emotional Dis-Ease: Political Healing of the Inter-Korean Emotional Imbalance

On Thursday, 2021 May 13^th, an online lecture by recent Graduate School of International Relations (GSIR) graduate and research fellow, Dr. Andrei Yamamoto, was provided. The presentation investigated alternative ontologies (frameworks for representing shareable and reusable knowledge) and epistemologies (studies or theories of nature and grounds of knowledge) as well as the role of emotions in International Relations (IR). These investigations are particularly applied to East Asian Medicine (EAM) and Inter-Korean relations, leading to the title, “Fraternal Emotional Dis-Ease: Political Healing of the Inter-Korean Emotional Imbalance.”

In explaining the reasoning behind his decision to study this topic, Dr. Yamamoto shared the consideration that there is a lack of existing research in IR that analyzes problems outside of Western/Westphalian theories. As such, EAM is used as an alternative discourse to explain and analyze the emotional nature of inter-Korean relations through a distinctly Eastern theory involving the balance of Yin and Yang through five elements (Wuxing) representing states of being (emotions, development, etc.). Further, Dr. Yamamoto explained that the inter-Korean conflict is not only military in nature, but also ideological. Through the scope of EAM, the Koreas are two separate, but related bodies.

The lecture on the self-proclaimed thought experiment concluded with a Q&A session where Dr. Yamamoto and the attending students discussed several concepts in EAM vs. existing IR literature on emotions in analyzing the inter-Korean conflict as well as the possibility of using the EAM framework to understand dis-ease (conflict) in IR along with other areas of studies.

Written by Yami Roca and Yusy Widarahesty (Doctoral Students at the Graduate School of International Relations)