The Politics of Signification Surrounding the Korean Athlete Sin Geumdan: Focusing on the 1964 Tokyo Olympics

North Korean athlete Sin Geumdan(b. 1938) first gained international recognition in the early 1960s by setting multiple world records in track and field. However, her participation in the 1963 Games of the New Emerging Forces(GANEFO) resulted in a subsequent ban from the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Despite the North Korean delegation’s visit to Japan, the ban on Sin Geumdan and others remained in effect until the last minute, leading to a boycott of the Olympics and a subsequent return home by the entire team. Prior to this, the brief reunion between Sin Geumdan and her father, who had been separated during the Korean War and resided in South Korea, emerged as a significant topic of discussion. This paper re-examines this series of events based on the concept of “politics of signification.” It finds that meanings such as “Chollima Korea”, “new emerging forces”, “motherland”, “separated family”, and “division (of Korea)” were assigned depending on the context and positionality. Rather than these meanings being structurally determined, it is more accurate to posit that Sin Geumdan’s journey, which traversed numerous borders, revealed these structures.