The Institute for Peace and Unification Studies at Seoul National University hosted its 95th Unification Studies Forum on Monday, November 13, 2023, featuring Min Lisa, a lecturer in the Department of Asian Studies at Yonsei University. The forum explored the theme “Without You, There Is No Us: Pyongyang University of Science and Technology(PUST) as Seen on Site.” The forum, an expansion and revamp of the previously held “Unification Policy Forum” from 2006 to 2020 (totaling 75 sessions), is now in its 95th session. Before commencing the forum, Lee Jung-chul,  Vice Director of the Institute for Unification Peace at SNU and Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at SNU, briefly introduced the upcoming schedule of Unification Studies Forums. Following this, Professor Jung Hyang Jin from the Department of Anthropology at Seoul National University, assumed the role of the moderator, delivering a welcoming address and opening the forum.

In this forum, Lisa Min, a U.S. citizen and anthropologist, shared stories of what she saw, heard, and felt during her month-long fieldwork at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST) in the summer of 2014. Quoting a PUST student who said, “There are no secrets at PUST,” Min posed the question, “What is the meaning of secrecy in North Korea?” Borrowing from anthropologist Alexei Yurchak’s statement that “dualistic explanations such as truth and falsehood miss crucial and paradoxical facts,” Min focused on “public secrets” and sought to break away from existing stereotypes about North Korea, emphasizing that “public secrets” stem from “active not-knowing.” In other words, “there are no secrets in PUST” is “not a description of high surveillance or state power, but a kind of contact zone for encountering the second world” and “a device to present another perspective.” As such, Min’s anthropological fieldwork allowed her to enter a world of public secrecy and convey in vivid words the “North Korea on the ground” that she encountered, felt, and experienced there.