Precarious motherhood

1 In labeling the marriage migrant women's motherhood in Korea as precarious, we emphasize the additional difficulties they face as outsiders navigating an unfamiliar ideological and structural landscape.

: Lives of Southeast Asian marriage migrant women in Korea

Abstract

This paper examines the experiences of Southeast Asian women married to Korean men to understand the social adjustments made by marriage migrant women as they cross national borders to form new families. The process of marrying into Korean families and becoming mothers of Korean children links them firmly into their new society, but their foreign origins and appearance mark them as outsiders and give them an ambiguous status that is at once both of insider and outsider. Based on interviews with fifteen marriage migrant women who reside in Gyeonggi Province, we discuss their experiences of motherhood, to show how ideas of nation, ethnicity and class interact. Their experiences in becoming “Korean mothers” create complicated and multi-tiered identities, practices, and strategies which engage with Korea's patrilineal ideology, family norms, the cultural expectations of a homogeneous society, and the motherhood norms of Korea's middle class. Finally, we highlight the agency of the marriage migrant women as they create and manage changing families and motherhood roles in a globalized world.

Abstract in Korean

본 논문은 한국남성과 결혼한 동남아시아 여성을 경험을 중심으로 이들이 한국에 적응하는 과정에서 한국의 오랜 단일민족 국가규범과 부계중심의 가족문화, 그리고 자녀교육을 강조하는 한국의 모성규범이 어떻게 교차하는지 분석하였다. 연구참여자는 모두 15명이며 이주민이 많은 수도권 지역(경기도)으로 제한하였다. 결혼이주여성은 자녀를 통해 새로운 사회와 연결되지만, 단일민족 국가 정서가 남아있는 한국사회에서 ‘다문화 자녀’는 다양한 차별에 직면해있다. 노동이주가 ‘초국적 모성’과 같은 모성의 변화를 가져오는 것처럼 결혼이주 역시 국가, 종족, 계층이 교차하는 가운데 다양한 어머니 노릇과 변화를 보여주고 있다. 결혼이주여성의 모성경험은 ‘한국인 엄마’가 되려는 기대 속에서 한국의 부계가족 중심의 문화와 동질적인 한국사회 규범, 그리고 중산층 중심의 모성 규범과 맞물러 다층적인 정체성과 실천, 전략 등을 만들어내는 과정에 놓여있다. 이 연구에서는 글로벌화되는 세계에서 결혼이주여성들이 만들어내는 가족과 모성의 변화를 통해 결혼이주여성의 행위성을 강조하고자 하였다.

Keywords:

• South Korea
• marriage migrant women
• multicultural children
• precarious motherhood
• patrilineal family
• agency

Keywords:

• 결혼이주여성
• 다문화 자녀
• 모성
• 부계가족
• 행위성

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by the Academy of Korean Studies Grant funded by the Korean Government (MEST) (AKS-2010-DZZ-2101).

Notes on contributors

Euna LEE is Assistant Professor at the Center for General Education, Ewha Womans University. Her research interests focus on the multiculturalism, gender policy and feminist pedagogy. Email: [email protected]

Seung-kyung KIM is Professor and Chair of the Department of Women's Studies and Director of the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Maryland. Her current research focuses on the intersection of transnational migration, education, and the family.

Jae Kyung LEE is Professor of Women's Studies at Ewha Womans University. Trained as a sociologist, she has specialized in family issues and gender policies in South Korea. She has researched and published numerous articles, book chapters and authored and edited books. Her significant works include Modern Korean Family and Feminism, Women's Studies, and The State and Gender. She has recently completed the five-year research project titled “Becoming Modern: Women's Oral history, the Politics of National Division and Development in Postcolonial Korea.” Email: [email protected]

Notes

1 In labeling the marriage migrant women's motherhood in Korea as precarious, we emphasize the additional difficulties they face as outsiders navigating an unfamiliar ideological and structural landscape.

2. The interviews were conducted in Korean. Each subject was interviewed once or twice and the total duration of interviews ranged from two to five hours per interviewee. The locations for the interviews were selected by the interviewees, and included their homes, parks, and coffee shops.

3. Gyeonggi Province has the largest concentration of international marriages between Korean men and Southeast Asian women as well as a significant concentration of migrant workers, especially in Ansan city. As of 2013, the number of international marriages was 26,948 cases nationwide, 6,549 of which were in Gyeonggi Province (Statistics Korea).

4. The collaboration for this paper started in 2010 when the co-authors worked on a comparative paper investigating the lives of migrant workers in Ansan city, Gyeonggi Province in Korea and Langley Park, Maryland in the U.S.