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This thesis stands by the arguments that racism and nationalism cannot be fully explicated without an interrogation of their relationship, and that the understanding of multiculturalism cannot be detached from the examination of the contemporary politics of race and racism. In this sense, I attempt to provide an understanding of what multiculturalism actually does rather than to propose what multiculturalism is

in a normative sense. As previously discussed, I find it hardly constructive that studies about multiculturalism in Korea are preoccupied with debates on the extent to which Korean multiculturalism is aberrant from the multicultural ideal, whether the term multiculturalism has any use in Korea, or which model of migrant integration the Korean government needs to adopt and implement. Such approaches, at best, indicate that Korean multiculturalism involves inconsistencies, revealing

58 discrepancies between its rhetoric and practices. What seems to be needed, rather, is a close look at the reasons why such discrepancies exist and the ways in which this inconsistency-ridden multiculturalism works as a framework that shapes the politics of race and, at the same time, imagines the nation in certain ways. In this sense, I disagree with the dominant academic viewpoint that treats Korean multiculturalism as an inert phenomenon (both on the level of policy and politics) just because it does not live up to its name. I also would question the notion that the much-criticised discrepancies have been caused simply by the lack of philosophical understanding of the multicultural ideal, or by the inconsistent implementation of multicultural policies.

No matter how contradictory Korean multiculturalism appears to be, it is clear that it generates certain ideological and material effects, as it provides a frame with which racial/cultural differences are conceived and discussed in relation to the making of Korea as a nation. As Goldberg writes, in lieu of reducing multiculturalism to either a political doctrine or to a set of policies, or to an intellectual paradigm and radical critique, it is required to examine ‘concerns and considerations, principles and practices, concepts and categories that now fall under the rubric of “multiculturalism”’ (Goldberg 1994; 2). Hence, this thesis, as Ben Pitcher (2009) does in his analysis of the politics of multiculturalism in Britain, considers multiculturalism as a pragmatic and descriptive concept rather than a normative one, by understanding it as ‘a form of social practice’ through which the contemporary politics of race finds its expression. Put differently, I intend to scrutinise the discourse and practices of multiculturalism and explore what it identifies as

59 problems, what it proposes as solutions and strategies, and what kind of visions it offers in relation to questions of ‘race’, culture, and belonging.

Particularly, this thesis attempts to make the discussion of ‘race’ (or more accurately, the silence about ‘race’ and racism) central to the analysis of multiculturalism. This deliberate effort might incur the risk of being read as unnecessarily provocative because of its reference to the concept of ‘race’, especially in the Korean context. Indeed, as detected in the aforementioned academic reticence on ‘race’/racism, and as will be further corroborated later in my discussion of the empirical data, bringing up the subject of racism during interviews clearly disturbed the majority of my interviewees and often elicited the dismissal of the subject itself. However, I argue, precisely for this reason, that a critical interrogation of racial politics in relation to multicultural discourses gains more significance in the Korean context. It should be clear by now that I do not take recourse to the use of categorical notions of ‘race’ as a scientifically verifiable reality and do not endorse the reification of ‘race’. Yet, it should be also noted that dismantling ‘race’ as a category (or at a superficial level, simply avoiding the use of the term ‘race’ for categorisation) is what Korea’s state multiculturalism currently focuses on, which in effect, diverts attention from the social reality of racism. In this sense, it seems useful to follow Stravenhagen’s observation, ‘race does not beget racism, but rather racism generates races’ (1999, 6)29, particularly when examining racism in the Korean context. Ahmed (2004) states:

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Racism works to produce race as if it was a property of bodies (biological essentialism) or cultures (cultural essentialism). Race exists as an effect of histories of racism as histories of the present. (Ahmed 2004)

Indeed, the Korean case of multiculturalism is emblematic in this regard since historically obscured race-thinking is being grafted onto the process of constructing new racial categories without deploying the language of ‘race’. Accordingly, such categories exert power over the possible course of action of a certain group of people who are ‘seen to inhabit this or that category’ (ibid.). As such, multiculturalism serves a dual but conflicting function, in Amin’s (2010) word, ‘doublespeak’. On the one hand, it declares that ‘race’ is not relevant any more. On the other, it constantly engenders racialisation by framing and naming others. Indeed, the employment of the term ‘multicultural’ as a pseudo-racial category in Korea, to wit the use of multicultural as a qualifier of a certain group of people,30 can be seen as a somewhat crude form of ‘anti-racialism’ (Goldberg 2009), that is, resisting the application of racial categories. However, in fact, this seemingly colour-blind language not only is no less racialising but also effectively conceals racism. In this sense, placing stress on the importance of interrogating the ‘non-performativity of anti-racism’31

in multicultural politics (Ahmed 2004), I aim to investigate how the declarative mode of promoting multiculturalism reproduces racism. In other words, this thesis explores how the enunciation of multiculturalism as a good, desirable inclination to overcome

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See Chapter four for detailed discussion.

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Explaining the non-performativity of the performative, Ahmed (2004) maintains ‘the declarative mode involves a fantasy of transcendence in which “what” is transcended is the very “thing” admitted to in the declaration.’ In other words, anti-racist speech acts do not actually do what they say. They create a belief that what is said is already achieved and concurrently let it be negated. For example, the admission of racism as bad practice itself is often endorsed as proof of one’s anti-racist practice, even though it is not materialised in any form of social action.

61 various forms of prejudices automatically exonerates the enunciators from charges of racism.

In so doing, this thesis particularly focuses on the role of culture appropriated in constructing differences, constituting the dynamics of in/exclusion and at the same time silencing racism. As Lentin (2005) argues, states’ implementation of multiculturalism in the post-war Western countries can be seen as a ‘culturalist turn’ that replaced ‘race’ with ‘culture’ as a way of dealing with diversity. For its part, this culturalist turn has been in sync with the project of anti-racialism which has garnered international support after the Holocaust. Though I do not deny that anti-racialism can function as a radical critique and practice in a certain specific context, it is worth acknowledging its limit. This is particularly so considering the ironic fact that culturally based explanations of human differences proffered by multiculturalism have been often co-opted by the racist agenda. Indeed, as Goldberg (2002) discusses in his book The Racial State, ‘racelessness’ has become the primary form of

contemporary racisms. The allegedly race-neutral appearance of ‘new racism’ (Barker 1981) – also called ‘racism without race’ (Balibar 1991b) and cultural racism – requires us to reflect on culture as an essential constituent of racism. Racism always talks about culture: it could be said that there is no single form of racism which does not use the language of culture in framing differences. Such understanding of the relationship between racism and culture is especially valuable to examine racism in Korea where the process of racialisation heavily draws on cultural differences, both historically and in the present day. And particularly within the prevailing discourses of multiculturalism, it is officially claimed that we now have different but equal cultures instead of a ‘hierarchical structure of race’. As a

62 result, racism does disappear in the field of visibility, but not in reality. Race, in due course, becomes a taboo notion used only by a small number of racists, and racism is disconnected from the state (Lentin 2005). In this vein, this thesis will formulate the workings of state multiculturalism as the politics of hush within the Korean context. As argued above, this examination of the politics of multiculturalism inevitably begs the question of what kind of national self is constructed in tandem with a racial/racist construction of the Other. Multiculturalism does not necessarily need to be conceived within the remit of a nation-state and is, in fact, not always implemented at/through the national level. Yet, I find it useful to conceptualise multiculturalism as strategies mainly employed by the state to manage diversity and to produce certain type of citizens. As such, multiculturalism is not an antithesis of nationalism. Rather, it is often overdetermined by the politics of national identity and its relationship with nationalism is mutually constitutive.

Indeed, the current form of multiculturalism in Korea is more aptly described as multicultural nationalism. Although nationalism (often modulated with qualifiers such as ‘historically strong ethnic’ nationalism) seems to be rejected as an outdated value in contemporary multicultural discourses, this disclaimer itself often embodies a nationalist desire, one that consciously searches for its place in a globalised world. Here, it should be noted that multiculturalism is not only concerned with the management of internal diversity but with the presentation of the self in a larger world.32 For this reason, it is of primary importance to look at the role of the state as

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63 a key agent who produces and reproduces ‘the nature of the hegemonic national ethos in the society’ (Anthias and Yuval-Davis 1992, 27).

As explained earlier, I tend to move beyond the dominant academic tendencies in Korea in terms of delineating the relationship between nationalism and multiculturalism: either a simple presumption of the relationship between nationalism and multiculturalism as antagonistic, or an (implicit) attempt to reconcile the two. Rather, resisting the (intentional) decoupling of ‘race’, nation and culture, this thesis will look closely at the (re)construction of the national self under the rubric of multiculturalism and its racialised and racialising nature, which will hopefully lead to provide a compelling new account of the politics of multiculturalism in Korea.

Conclusion

This chapter has mapped the newly emerging intellectual terrain of multiculturalism in Korea, explaining my theoretical position by reflecting upon problems I identified within the existing literature, and consequently creating a new research space for the critical analysis of multiculturalism. In so doing, I particularly emphasised the importance of interrogating multiculturalism in relation to the construction and transformation of racialised nationalism. As explained earlier in the chapter, this type of approach is virtually absent from Korean academia, which itself is, I argue, symptomatic of the silence about ‘race’ and the denial of racism prevalent in Korean society at large, despite the fervent celebration of multiculturalism. In my opinion, thinking about multiculturalism cannot and should not circumvent the discussion of racism. And thinking about racism in Korea first and foremost needs to grapple with

64 the claim of ‘Korea’s racial irrelevance’ and also the simple fact that Koreans can be racists. In order to probe this claim, we need to examine the inextricably intertwined construction of the self and Other based on the understanding of the reciprocal relationship between racism and nationalism. From this perspective, the following chapters will look into historical modalities of this mutual constitution of racism and nationalism, with particular focus on its contemporary reconfiguration that takes place within the growing presence of multiculturalism.

By exploring various resources that racist practices and racial categories – indeed, racist culture – draw upon under the rubric of multiculturalism, I aim to discuss what multiculturalism does particularly in relation to racism, which is articulated through the silence about ‘race’. Although this thesis takes a critical stance towards this multicultural silencing, it should be noted that it does not simply reject multiculturalism by identifying it as a cause of racism as such. In addition, while my use of the term multiculturalism throughout this thesis is not a normative one, I neither intend to denounce all the normative arguments developed by political theories of multiculturalism nor to discredit the value of the concept entirely. On the contrary, I have already explained the problems of such an outright rejection earlier in this chapter, when analysing the academic backlash against multiculturalism and its conservative turn in Korea. In this sense, the starting point for this thesis is to acknowledge that, whether we like it or not, multiculturalism does have an impact on reality by opening up a space where racial/cultural differences are debated. In so doing, multiculturalism reconstructs national identity, changes our language of rights, and contests values taken-for-granted in the past. And what it does and how it is done is multifarious and, indeed, contradictory.

65 It is worth emphasising again that multiculturalism is ‘a kind of floating signifier which gains both meaning and strategic capabilities only in a specific context’ (Gunew 2004, 28). Therefore, instead of taking a position for or against multiculturalism, this thesis aims to rigorously engage with the complexities lying within it.

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