Removing and Rehabilitating the Burangin: South Korean Newspapers' Vagrancy Discourse in Support of State Violence

Abstract

The South Korean government used the burangin [vagrants] label to justify their massive wave of forced institutionalizations in the 1980s that resulted in countless abuses and many hundreds of deaths. The survivors' legal battles continue as the state, while no longer arresting so-called "vagrants," has never rectified the crimes of that period. Universal deinstitutionalization remains a controversial proposition in South Korea as the public is generally unaware of fundamental problems inherent in the practice of institutionalization itself. This paper uses critical discourse analysis to examine the discourse of vagrants in South Korean newspapers in the 1980s. While police cracked down on alleged vagrancy, the news media constructed the vagrant as an unsightly object, a threatening figure, and a target for rehabilitation. This article also discusses oppressive power mechanisms around this discourse which connects to issues of ableism and disability.