난민의 시학 —법의 통치를 넘어서는 시의 정치

This paper critically examines how the ideals of Modern Democracy and the Nation-State in Korean contemporary history have been institutionalized through the principle of the rule of law, and how this process has produced marginalized subjects―what the author terms the “refugee” in a redefined sense. While the 1987 regime marked a pivotal moment in Korea’s democratization and constitutionalism, the overextension of juridical power has paradoxically undermined popular sovereignty. The 2024 martial law crisis epitomized this structural failure. In response, the paper proposes a “poetics of the refugee” by analyzing the recent poems of Kim Haeng-sook, Jang I-ji, and Choi Ji-in. These poetic texts articulate a mode of resistance that escapes the logics of legal and institutional order, and envision a politics of poetry that gestures toward impossible yet necessary forms of democracy. The “refugee” subject emerges as a figure of critical potential―neither fully inside nor outside the law―who challenges the boundaries of Modern citizenship and reimagines communal life beyond state governance. Ultimately, this study redefines democracy not as a completed institutional form, but as an ongoing process of rupture, imagination, and becoming.