Intersecting Hierarchies: Media Representation Of Marriage Migrants Under South Korea’s Empty Multiculturalism
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2021
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University of Hawaii at Manoa
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In 2006, the South Korean state enacted a multicultural policy, as an extension of immigration policy and a response to increased international marriages and marriage migrants. Marriage migrants wed ethnic Koreans and settle in South Korea for a variety of reasons. Despite the political rhetoric that the multicultural policy ensures life quality for marriage migrants, it remains an empty government promise which embodies a nationalist agenda. This study examines how the Korean media represents South Korea’s multicultural policies, and how the media help affirm or deny marriage migrants’ intersecting hierarchies of race, gender, and class. By exploring the political and cultural dimensions of Korea’s multicultural policies through media analysis, I argue the Korean media separates marriage migrants into four different ideal types: Inspiration, Integration, Assimilation, and Separation. Despite the media’s efforts to display racial harmony, the media perpetuates multicultural policies which maintain biased images of marriage migrants (e.g., the public surveillance and stigmatization of Southeast Asian migrant wives). To explore intersecting hierarchies of race, gender, and class, this study pays attention to racialized genders that have received little academic attention, such as non-white migrant husbands. This study rejects the prevalent dichotomous interpretation of marriage migrants’ experiences on an inclusivity versus exclusivity binary, and demonstrates how this dichotomous narrative fails to recognize their complex social positionality and agency.
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Intercountry marriage--Government policy, Interracial marriage in mass media
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Korea (South)
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