It's exciting to be back after nearly 10 months of living as an overseas graduate student (yes, I also was a migrant!), to meet my family, friends, and colleagues in a familiar environment.
What's more exciting, is that South Korea provides such a dynamic setting for my summer project, because the number of migrants, especially migrant women, is growing rapidly.
One Sunday in Ansan, Gyongi Province, which hosts a major community of migrant workers and is home to many factories. The local government has officially termed this area as "Borderless Village". Note that most migrants out in the streets are male, a stark difference from Hong Kong. It reflects the unique fact that "labor" migrants in South Korea are male-dominated, but also that women are often discouraged from occupying the public space.
Since the early 2000s, international marriages between Korean men and foreign women have rapidly increased, accounting for more than 11% of total marriages as of 2008. Thus, the adjustment of foreign women has become a full-scale policy challenge for South Korea, who has remained a homogeneous society for more than five millenniums. Women who come as marriage migrants are mostly from Southeast Asia and China (and few from former Soviet Union countries), and they experience legal or human rights barriers, as well as difficulties in language, culture, religion, socioeconomic backgrounds.
The government has responded to these challenges by embracing “multiculturalism”. Establishing community centers assisting ‘multicultural’ families that provide language/cultural training, promoting multicultural education, and so on.
But is this sort of top-down multiculturalism sufficient, or effective?
I feel something fundamental is missing, that is, gender-sensitive and empowerment perspective.
"Damunhwa Gil", which means "Multiculture Street", in Ansan. But is multiculturalism achieved by city planning?
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