From its independence from Japan in 1945 until the 1980s, South Korea was a labour-exporting country. But from the mid-1980s, particularly after the 1988 Seoul Olympics, Korea shifted to become a labour importer. Wages increased substantially due to economic growth and the active labour movement of the late 1980s. But the gap in wages and working conditions between big companies and small and medium-sized enterprises widened. This led to labour shortages in so-called 3D (difficult, dirty, and dangerous) sectors and this gap in Korea’s domestic labour
5
Here, I chose the term ‘race critical theories’ instead of a more commonly used term, critical race theory. To explain this, it might be useful to juxtapose CRT (critical race theory) with race critical theory, though I think they cannot be clearly differentiated, both having more in common than not. CRT which particularly has been applied to US law is a theoretical framework that focuses on the issues of ‘race’, racism and power, translating its perspective into practices of anti-subordination. On the other hand, race critical theory, according to Goldberg and Essed (2002), is a critical perspective put forward in order to challenge CRT’s tendency of restricting its application to socio-legal issues (mainly law) and widen its scope by acknowledging the historical tradition of race theorising across humanities and social sciences. In this sense, my theoretical references are more in line with the literature of race critical theorists, if such distinction needs to be made at all.
23 supply for low-skilled work started to be filled by migrant workers from other Asian countries (S-D Kang 1996, 265). ‘The magic of the foreign exchange rate’6 (Seol 2005, 71) also contributed to a rapid influx of migrant workers into Korea. All these migrant workers were undocumented before the Korean government launched the Industrial Technical Training Programme (ITTP) in November 1991. Yet, ironically, the legalisation of migrant workers through the ITTP caused a significant increase in the number of undocumented workers. The ITTP deprived de facto
workers of basic labour rights by conveniently defining them as trainees. Because of low wages (in some cases, even less than that of undocumented workers) and poor working conditions, migrant workers barely saw any value in this legalisation and the majority chose to remain undocumented (Seol and Skrentny 2004, 495). Against this backdrop, migrant workers’ desperate outcry over exploitation, infringement of human rights and constant fear of deportation began to draw the attention of Korean NGO activists. Some NGOs started to preliminarily consider ‘multiculturalism’ as an idea to support the migrant worker advocacy movement in the 1990s7, but the term itself was rarely used then.
In contrast to migrant workers whose existence in Korea was (and still is) regarded only to be temporary, increasing international marriages, mainly between Korean men and foreign women, forced the Korean state to recognise an irrevocable (and continuing) change in its population. In the mid-2000s, the government accepted the fact that the presence of such racial others and their children could not just be
6
In the late 1980s, the value of the Korean won was much stronger compared to those of other South Asian countries. As a result, it became much more advantageous for migrant workers to come to Korea and earn their wages in won.
7
For example, the Borderless Village project started in 1999 with the aim of building a ‘multicultural’ community of migrant workers. This project was developed in the City ofAnsan where in some wards the percentage of migrant workers reached 50 per cent of the population (Oh and Jung 2006, 76).
24 ignored, since they effectively became part of the ‘Korean family’ and would not leave Korea. Accordingly, NGOs’ demands for migrant rights and multicultural coexistence began to be reviewed and selectively co-opted by the state8. In 2006, the government announced a Grand Plan for the Social Integration of Female Marriage Immigrants, Mixed-bloods9 and Migrants whose overarching vision was stated as, ‘integrating female marriage immigrants and bringing about an open multicultural society’10. This signalled the official adoption of the term ‘multicultural’ as rhetoric
for public policy concerning migrants. Since the Korean government has never explicitly defined what it means by ‘multicultural’ or ‘multiculturalism’, the term has been employed very loosely (and flexibly) even when it appears in policy documents.
However, as explained earlier, the oscillation between description and prescription with respect to the meaning of multiculturalism is not specific to Korea. The concept of multiculturalism is used both to describe a social reality of increasing racial, ethnic and cultural diversity, and to prescribe the ways in which such diversity should be dealt with, mainly based on the idea of recognising differences, endorsing their equal value and accommodating diversity. These two meanings are often conflated in Korea as well. Yet there is a distinctive tone in the Korean use of
8
H-K Lee (2007, 242) argues that the multicultural policies of the 2000s were the outcome of NGO- Government liaison. This liaison between the government and NGOs took the form of cooperation in the development and delivery of policies, and concomitant funding relations between the two were strengthened under the Roh Moo Hyun government (Feb. 2003 – Feb. 2008), coloured with his new political vision of ‘participatory democracy’ (S-O Lee 2007, 99). In this political atmosphere, many migrant rights NGOs were institutionalised by becoming major partners in government policy programmes (ibid.).
9
The term ‘mixed-blood’ is literally translated from the Korean word, honhyǒl, and can be roughly understood as ‘mixed-race’. For detailed analysis of the genealogy of the term and also the contemporary dismissal of the term and its relationship with the emergence of the term ‘multicultural’, see Chapter two and four.
10
25 ‘multicultural’ that further complicates this double meaning. Even when ‘multicultural’ is used as an adjective, for example in the form of ‘multicultural society’, the connotation often goes beyond the indication of the current state of empirical diversity. ‘Multicultural society’ is deployed as a signifier for the
transition of the Korean society. Perhaps one of the most used phrases these days is that ‘Korea is becoming a multicultural society.’ This is reflected in the results of the survey published by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family in 2007. To the multiple choice question about whether one conceives Korea as a multicultural society and/or expects Korea to be a multicultural society, more than half of respondents answered that ‘it is not now, but will become a multicultural society’; this is over double the number of respondents who assume ‘it is now multicultural’ (cited in E-M Kim et al. 2009, 59). Hence, in the association between Korean society and the term ‘multicultural’, a subtle but significant emphasis is put on the word,
becoming. It means Korea is moving towards a certain state of being ‘multicultural’. This use of becoming goes beyond the description of an empirical reality which has been, is and will be always changing because of the ‘increasing’ number of migrants.
Rather ‘multicultural’ plays the role of indicating what a future society might look like. From this view, ‘multicultural policy’ is employed as a tool to help Korea
prepare for such a society. In other words, ‘multicultural policy’ is conceived and developed as a vaccine against problems presumed to occur in a fully ‘multicultural society’. In this respect, multicultural policy is a policy grown out of a certain fear of the future: a policy through which the rhetoric of the future dictates the present. Such employment of multiculturalism as a vaccine against future problems will be analysed in detail in Chapter six.
26 Ironically, despite the fact that multicultural policies were mostly pre-emptive
measures to potential problems stemming from this transition towards a multicultural society, this ‘futuristic’ implication also gets easily attached to mostly celebratory accounts of multiculturalism. By presenting multiculturalism as a positive societal change, this celebratory rhetoric often frames multiculturalism as a normative discourse. Though the term ‘multiculturalism’ is not often used with its suffix, ‘- ism’, outside of its scholarly use, multiculturalism as prescription appears, for example, in phrases circulated by the media such as ‘Korea should become a multicultural society.’ This is revealed in the aforementioned survey questionnaire. Leaving aside the result of the survey, it is interesting to see how each answer choice in this multiple choice question was phrased and categorised. The term ‘multicultural’ seems to be used in a descriptive manner in the abovementioned two answer options – 1) ‘Korea is a multicultural society now’ 2) ‘Korea is not a multicultural society now, but will become one’ and the answer option number 4) ‘Korea is not a multicultural society now and does not seem likely to become one’ (cited in E-M Kim et al. 2009, 59). However, there are two other answer choices stating 3) ‘Korea is not a multicultural society now but should become one’ 5) ‘Korea is not a multicultural society now and should not become one’(ibid.)11. Thus, within one single question item, ‘multicultural society’ is confusingly presented as both an empirical reality and a value-laden idea. Such confusion and obscurity was found in the policy vision – ‘bringing about an open multicultural society’ – of the aforementioned government’s Grand Plan. Here, ‘multicultural society’ implicitly
11
According to the result of the survey, 15.8 per cent of respondents chose number 3 and 1.6 per cent number 5 (E-M Kim et al. 2009, 59).
27 connotes not only a future society, that has not yet arrived, but also one that Korea should aim to be.12
Other than this distinctive ‘futuristic’ connotation, the most popular use of the term ‘multicultural’ is its use as a qualifier – for instance, in phrases such as ‘multicultural family’, ‘multicultural child’ and ‘multicultural woman’. Even at times, ‘multicultural (or multiculture)’ without any following word is understood as a generic term for migrants in everyday conversations (usually with a negative connotation). Surprisingly, this use of ‘multicultural’ as a qualifier was conventionalised by the state. From the beginning of multicultural policy development, the state’s interest lied in promoting the social integration of a specific group of migrants, i.e. female marriage immigrants. In 2008, the Support for Multicultural Families Act was legislated with a specific focus on female marriage immigrants and their children. As can be seen in the title of this Act, the term ‘multicultural’ is used as a form of qualifier for a certain group of people, here indicating a family formed by international marriage. The use of ‘multicultural’ as a qualifier had existed prior to 2008, but the legislation surely endorsed such use.13 For example, the state-run Migrant Women’s Family Support Centre, first established in 2006, changed its name to the Multicultural Family Support Centre
after the legislation.
12
But it should be noted that what kind of society that is, remains very vague. In this regard, this type of proposition is often criticised as a rhetorical form of speech, not as a substantive commitment to multiculturalism. This type of critique will be explained in detail in a following section where I map out academic criticisms of current multicultural policies in Korea.
13
An in-depth explanation of such use of ‘multicultural’ in relation to the Act will be provided in Chapter four where I trace the euphemistic shift in racialisation.
28 As can be seen from the aforementioned different uses of the term multicultural, the various meanings attached to multiculturalism, especially with distinctive Korean twists, seem to make it harder to establish what the term actually means. However, despite this multicultural confusion, or more correctly because of this flexible use of the term multicultural, multiculturalism has become the language that you cannot circumvent (regardless of your opinions on multiculturalism) when talking about migrants and the Korean society they are in. As commentators point out, there has seldom been a significant attempt to philosophical or public discussion about what ‘multiculturalism’ means and why it is needed in Korea (cf. H-S Kim 2007; K-K Han 2008; J-R Choi 2010; Y-S Lee 2011; Kwon et al. 2012). Moreover, in Korea, multiculturalism has not been put forward by migrants themselves as a strategy to enhance their rights. And despite its major role in multicultural policy development, the Korean state has never declared multiculturalism as its official policy as was the case in countries such as Canada. Yet, multiculturalism seems to have become a keyword in talking about our new neighbours here and now, and in discussing different visions of society while channelling both hope and fear.
In tandem with this policy development and concurrent multicultural confusion, research on multiculturalism has become a burgeoning industry too. Various different ways of employing the term multicultural and various interpretations of multiculturalism are also found in the literature on multiculturalism, exponentially increasing in size. Geon-Soo Han (2012) insists that ‘multicultural fever’14 reached a messy point where whatever type of constructive scholarly discussion seems
14
He calls a dramatic increase of multicultural discourses in Korea: ‘multicultural fever’ (G-S Han 2012).
29 almost impossible because of the abuse of the term and concept. As concerns about multicultural confusion grow, theoretical studies on multiculturalism (particularly to identify ‘Korean multiculturalism’) and critical examinations of current multiculturalism are increasing too.