Global migration and the racial project in transition: institutionalizing racial difference through the discourse of multiculturalism in South Korea

Abstract

Global migration has transformed what used to be racially homogenous countries like South Korea. To regulate the increasing number of foreign populations, the Korean government started to use the term multiculturalism and has actively produced supportive plans for female marriage migrants and multicultural families from the mid-2000s. Through examining governmental policy documents as well as public discourses around multiculturalism, this article aims to spell out how the discourse of multiculturalism contributes to the racialization process in South Korea. It demonstrates that there has been a discursive shift from migrant workers to the multicultural family as the targeted subjects of the government's multicultural policy. In turn, this discursive transformation signals a broader shift in the immigration policy's framework: from the perspective of labor to that of family. The paper argues that, through this dynamic process, the current state-led multicultural policy brings about institutional discrimination against migrant workers; conversely, it is much more inclusive toward female marriage migrants and multicultural families.

Keywords:

• global migration
• racial politics
• multicultural family
• migrant worker
• South Korea

Notes

1. It is worthy to note, at this point, that a special issue on Korean multiculturalism was published in English in Volume 47, Issue 4, of Korean Journal. This special issue covers Korean multiculturalism from various perspectives including Political Philosophy, Political Science, Sociology, and Anthropology. For a survey of the literature on Korean multiculturalism, please refer to this issue.

2. For more detailed information about the governmental policy on migrant workers, please refer to Kim (2009) and Seol (2000).

3. I appreciate S.O. Lee (2009)'s work as it nicely maps out the development of governmental policies on migrant workers as well as civil organizations’ movements for migrant workers. Building on this literature, my research recontextualizes the discourse of migrant workers and highlights the discursive shift from the migrant workers to multicultural families under the current discursive explosion of multiculturalism.