This article joins the debate on the territorial dispute between South Korea and Japan over the Dokdo/Takeshima islets. The extant literature tends to attribute the continuous importance of the dispute for Korean politics to the collective historical memory of Japanese colonialism. This article seeks to offer a more nuanced interpretation of the symbolic role of Dokdo in Korean national identity. By focusing on the largest civil society organization engaged in ‘Protect Dokdo’ activism, this article examines the similarities and differences between the Dokdo related narrative and the ideas of the democratization movement of the 1970s and 1980s. The argument of the article is twofold. First, it argues that there are important similarities between the ways Korean national identity has been constructed in the two discourses. At the same time, the article identifies important differences between the two. These differences, it argues, enable the Dokdo related identity construct to bridge between the democratization movement’s conception of Korean identity and the conception of national identity advocated by the pre-1987 ruling elites. In other words, the article argues that the symbolic importance of Dokdo lies not only in the historical memory of Japanese colonization but is directly related to post-independence domestic processes in South Korea.

中文翻译：

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韩国民族认同、公民行动主义和独岛/竹岛领土争端

这篇文章加入了关于韩国和日本之间关于独岛/竹岛的领土争端的辩论。现存文献倾向于将朝鲜政治争端的持续重要性归因于日本殖民主义的集体历史记忆。本文旨在对独岛在韩国民族认同中的象征作用提供更细致入微的解释。本文以参与“保护独岛”行动的最大民间社会组织为中心，探讨独岛相关叙述与 1970 年代和 1980 年代民主化运动思想之间的异同。文章的论点是双重的。首先，它认为在这两种话语中韩国民族认同的构建方式之间存在重要的相似之处。同时，文章指出了两者之间的重要区别。它认为，这些差异使与独岛相关的身份建构能够在民主化运动的韩国身份概念与 1987 年前统治精英倡导的民族身份概念之间架起一座桥梁。换言之，文章认为独岛的象征意义不仅在于日本殖民的历史记忆，而且与韩国独立后的国内进程直接相关。