Hazing vs. Kahok’haengwi: Naming Violence in Suspicious Military Deaths in South Korea

Violence embedded in South Korea’s hierarchical and opaque social institutions remains academically underexplored, despite the country’s self-identified democratic status. The military, in particular, reveals systemic patterns of abuse, neglect, and silence through recurring suspicious deaths (Kun ŭimunsa, 군 의문사). A total of 452 such cases, compiled by the Presidential Truth Commission on Deaths in the Military, expose the institutional failures in preventing, recognizing, and addressing such violence—failures that disproportionately affect socially marginalized individuals. This study examines how Kahok’haengwi (가혹행위), commonly translated as “cruel acts,” and hazing operate as frameworks for understanding military violence. It critically investigates the conceptual differences between the two terms and highlights the problematic implications of uncritically applying the Western notion of hazing to the Korean military context. Despite their frequent conflation, Kahok’haengwi encompasses a broader, culturally embedded spectrum of violence that resists direct translation. To address the academic and institutional neglect of this issue, the study conducts a qualitative content analysis of 452 suspicious death cases, using Hong’s classification of violence as an interpretive framework. Through contextual and thematic analysis, the research identifies recurring patterns of coercion, neglect, and normalized abuse. It also explores how legal and institutional discourses obscure or reframe systemic violence as personal or accidental incidents. Findings suggest that violence within the South Korean military is often legitimized under the guise of discipline, hierarchy, or tradition. Furthermore, the analysis demonstrates that Kahok’haengwi and hazing are not interchangeable: while the former is used in Korean legal and institutional settings, the latter reflects a narrower, ritualistic model derived from Western contexts. This research contributes to the broader discourse on institutional accountability, legal ambiguity, and human rights under conscription-based systems. By distinguishing between Kahok’haengwi and hazing, the study challenges dominant narratives that individualize military violence and instead frames it as a systemic and culturally sustained phenomenon extending beyond the military into other domains of Korean society.