February 4, 2025 Voluntary Humanitarianism in Medical Policy: UN’s Scandinavian Allies at the Korean War and Beyond (1950s–1960s)
THE CENTER FOR KOREAN STUDIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAIʻI AT MĀNOA PRESENTS:
Voluntary Humanitarianism in Medical Policy: UN’s Scandinavian Allies at the Korean War and Beyond (1950s–1960s)
Date: February 4, 2025
Location: Center for Korean Studies Conference Room
The Korean War (1950–1953) was one of the most calamitous and brutal wars in modern history. It was fought by the post-colonial people of the peninsula, and it culminated in the creation of two ideologically opposed states, but the three years’ military clash in East Asia (or the Far East) is often labelled simply as a “Forgotten War” in the West including North America. The ensuing ethnic division has been interpreted through the various geopolitical lenses of military strategy, politics, international relations, and power games. What about the situation of casualties? Which particular nations in the United Nations (UN) dispatched medical aid for the treatment of war victims? How did the Scandinavian allies participate in the non-European war? What were their unique characteristics among non-military supporting nations? What legacy did they leave for the post-war Koreans? This lecture explores the military-historical backgrounds by which each of the following Northern European nations, namely, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, decided to send unarmed skilled personnel to aid South Korea. The lecture focuses on the social voluntarism of the neutral group in the critical insight that the field activities of Swedish Seojeon Byungwon, Danish Jutlandia, and Norwegian NORMASH individually promoted the Red Cross spirit of advanced humanitarianism on the top of mandatory duty, in giving special attention on children (orphans), women, civilians, POWs, and medical education, as well as the post-war collaboration for the initial Korean public health system in the 1960s.
Speaker:
David William Kim (Ph.D.: Syd.) is a Visiting Scholar at HDS, Harvard University (2024), a Lecturer in the School of History at Australian National University, and an Associate Professor of Asian History at Kookmin University, Seoul. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, UK, a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society, UK, and the editor of Brill Handbook on Contemporary Religions and of East Asian Religions and Culture (Cambridge S.P.). Kim’s publications include Environmental Hope (2024), Sacred Sites and Sacred Stories Across Cultures (2021), Daesoon Jinrihoe in Modern Korea (2020), and Colonial Transformation and Asian Religions in Modern History (2018).
Center for Korean Studies events are free and open to all. For further information, including information regarding disability access, telephone the Center for Korean Studies at 808-956-7041. Organized by the Center for Korean Studies. The University of Hawai‘i is an equal opportunity/affirmative action institution.
