From Stigma to Solidarity: The Rearticulation of Islamo-Leftism in South Korean Palestinian Solidarity Movements

This article examines Islamo-leftism not as a coherent ideology or organizational alliance, but as a floating signifier whose meaning shifts across political contexts. Drawing on Laclau and Mouffe’s theory of hegemony, it traces how a term that emerged in France as a stigmatizing label linking Islam, the radical left, decolonialism, and anti-Zionism is rearticulated in South Korea. There, the term itself remains marginal, yet the discursive elements it indexes are reassembled around Palestinian solidarity as a new nodal point. The article argues that “Palestine,” rather than Islamo-leftism, functions as an empty signifier in the South Korean case, condensing heterogeneous demands—refugee rights, Muslim minority rights, migrant labor rights, and anti-militarism—into a chain of equivalence. The article contributes to Islamo-leftism scholarship by moving beyond its French-centered frame, refining the concept of the traveling signifier, and offering a lens for understanding Palestinian solidarity in South Korean civil society.