[KS] Symposium at SOAS: Games of Change? Sport Diplomacy and the Korean Peninsula

[Charlotte Horlyck]

*Games of Change? Sport Diplomacy and the Korean Peninsula*



*A One-Day Symposium | Wednesday, 17 July, 2019*

*12:00 – 17:00 | S113, Senate House, SOAS, University of London*





*Convenors*: Prof David Rowe, CISD Research Associate and Dr J Simon Rofe,
Reader in Diplomatic and International Studies.



*External Participants*: Jung Woo (Jay) Lee Programme Director: MSc Sport
Policy, Management and International Development, The University of
Edinburgh



The 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics has been widely interpreted as a
classic instance of effective sport diplomacy.  In the context of an
increasingly fractious relationship between North Korea and the U.S., and
amid intensified fears of a nuclear conflict, sport has been credited as
the ‘ice breaker’ that brought the two Koreas into new dialogue and paved
the way for the North Korea-U.S. summits in Singapore (June, 2018) and
Hanoi (February, 2019).  It follows that PyeongChang 2018 paved the way for
the North Korea-Russia summit in Vladivostok (April, 2019).  Without sport
as a crucial common cultural form bringing together athletic and political
opponents, it can be proposed that these developments would never have
transpired within such a condensed timeframe.



The Korean case has provided renewed focus on the relationship between
sport and diplomacy at a time when scholarly thinking has coalesced around
the contested investigation of ‘sport diplomacy’ (Murray 2018; Rofe 2016,
2018).  This is not a minor case of academic pedantry.  The relationship
between sport and diplomacy is complex and sometimes contradictory, and the
use of a singular concept like sport diplomacy may conceal as much as it
reveals about the uses and abuses of sport in the sphere of diplomacy.



This symposium will critically explore the deployment of sport diplomacy
discourse concerning the 2018 Winter Olympics.  As an arena of intense
geopolitics between many parties (including Japan and China) within and
beyond the Korean peninsula, analysing this mega sport event will
illuminate key issues regarding the cultural dynamics of sport and
politics; the consequences for inter-regional relations of using sport as a
vehicle for dialogue, and the contested legacies of sport diplomacy
initiatives.  It is intended both to generate debate within policy circles
and the wider public sphere, and to advance academic knowledge through a
special issue of a relevant journal.





*How to submit*

Abstracts for papers should be no more than 250 words, each accompanied by
a short (100-word) bio. They should be submitted to Simon Rofe (
sr56 at soas.ac.uk) and Fadil Elobeid (fe5 at soas.ac.uk).

Deadline for proposals: 24 June 2019 | Decisions on proposals will be
communicated by 30th June.

-- 
Charlotte Horlyck 샬롯 홀릭 / President of the British Association of Korean
Studies  영국 한국학회장/ Chair of SOAS Centre of Korean Studies 한국학연구소 소장/ Senior
Lecturer in Korean art history, Department of History of Art and
Archaeology  고고미술사학과 교수 / 한국미술사 / Learning and Teaching Coordinator, SOAS
School of Arts
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