My wife is reading a book about the DPRK, Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea, written by a western journalist and based on defector testimony. I did a little digging and there's good evidence to indicate that defector testimony has structural incentives to push a particular narrative. It also seems to me that there isn't a ton of evidence about what things are really like in the DPRK. When I started to bring this up things got heated pretty quickly and, because I love my wife, I deescalated and we changed subjects.
My question is this, what do we actually know about the situation in the DPRK? I'm disinclined to believe the official western narrative due to the structural factors that work against an honest assessment. I saw this book, North Korea: Markets and Military Rule, and that seems to be relatively well regarded as being evidence based but, apparently, comes from a distinctly liberal perspective.
Beyond that I'm curious about how folks have gone about having conversations about the DPRK with people that have internalized western narratives. I found out pretty quickly that there's a strong emotional cord that underpins the belief. I'm sure I would have felt the same way at an earlier point in my life. Has anyone looked at this in more depth?
Many people point to Loyal Citizens of Pyongyang in Seoul as being eye-opening for them.
I recommend this podcast episode which is a panel discussion by anti-imperialist Korean diaspora who used to regularly travel to DPRK until the US banned travel to there in 2017: "KEEP: Stories from North Korea". I think this one is good for getting some insight into the situation in DPRK in a down-to-earth way, as the KEEP panel is just sharing their personal experiences and interactions there, and with an anti-imperialist stance.
Here are some mainstream liberal articles which aren't the usual over-the-top atrocity propaganda, if you think she might be open to reading them. Though they are not the best, as they remain in a liberal framework, I feel they each touch on something which counteracts the usual narratives, or points out the dynamics of how these narratives are produced.
mainstream articles with some quotes
"Unreliable witnesses: The challenge of separating truth from fiction when it comes to North Korea" by Jiyoung Song, a former UN Consultant for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. The author writes:
And here is an article from Hankyoreh, south Korea's top center-left liberal newspaper: "The insidious threat of fake news surrounding North Korea", which says:
And the case of Kim Ryun-hee: "A N. Korean mother’s quest to return home to Pyongyang", a woman from DPRK being kept in south Korea against her will (she is not the only person in this situation):
There are many cases of north Koreans stuck in south Korea against their wishes, Kim Ryun-hee is just one well-known case. Generally they are under surveillance by south Korea's intelligence services and get in trouble for publicly supporting DPRK, and some of them get framed, blackmailed, or tortured into producing false confessions of spying. A south Korean documentary called Spy Nation goes into detail about that. (Here it is on YouTube).
I found YouTube links in your comment. Here are links to the same videos on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Link 1:
Link 2: