Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2016. xi, 200 pp. US$24.95, paper. ISBN 978-0-8047-9966-9.
If the modernization of South Korea was predicated upon two major revolutions, namely economic industrialization and political democratization, it is clear today that a third social revolution is transforming the fundamental structures of Korean society. South Korea is an outlier on several indicators when compared to other member states of the OECD. Among OECD nations, South Korea currently boasts the highest suicide rate, the lowest fertility rate, and the third highest divorce rate. In addition, the number of immigrants residing in the country has dramatically increased in recent decades, now at over two million, or 4 percent of the population. For a nation that has long held to notions of “pure blood” and ethnic homogeneity, it is remarkable that the government is now touting “multicultural Korea” as the necessary future direction for Korean society.
As South Koreans wrestle with how to incorporate the growing numbers of foreign workers, marriage migrants, and biracial children, they have had to rethink automatic assumptions about citizenship, national belonging, and Korean identity. In Decentering Citizenship, Hae Yeon Choo tackles these important issues through the lens of Filipina migrants residing in South Korea. The larger narrative contextualizing this ethnographic study is the relationship between macro structural forces—in this case, varying government policies for different categories of migrants—and the reactionary patterns of adapting and navigating at the levels of community and family.
The within-group comparative methodological framework Choo utilizes is a great strength of the project. She identifies three groups of Filipina women who are defined by their differential access to the South Korean polity. Through tailored laws governing citizenship, residency visas, and work permits, the South Korean government dictates different possibilities for work and family for these women. Still, a fundamental goal of this book is to show that within the larger context of bureaucratic control of public and private lives, migrants actively adapt to and challenge the limitations placed on them. As Choo succinctly puts it, migrant lives “are not simply determined by structural forces and imposed exclusion; they are also full of vibrant contestation that shifts and remakes the borders of citizenship” (166).
Over six empirical chapters (excluding a helpful theoretical introduction and concluding thoughts), Choo takes us into the world of migrant communal life in South Korea. We learn about how Ramona, Michelle, and other hostesses working in the “Basetown” nightclubs actively try to increase their chances of fulfilling their financial and family goals. In “Factorytown,” we are introduced to Roselle and Florence, who are part of a migrant labour population that is now over a half million strong. Through poignant accounts of personal struggles—such as Virgie, an undocumented worker who was unable to circumvent the constant threat of deportation—we get a glimpse of the spirit driving migrant workers to make both bold and subtle claims on the rights to economic, political, and social inclusion. Choo’s ethnography also provides a window into the lives of Carrie, Gayun, and other marriage migrants who leave their own families and friends behind in the Philippines to marry Korean men, a trend that is at the heart of the solution for the “bridal shortage” facing rural and lower-class bachelors.
Because of the comparative framework structuring the analysis, Choo is able to go beyond the general narrative of migrant exclusion by showing the diverging consequences of government policies for varying groups of Filipina women. Notwithstanding the substantial material and cultural barriers marriage migrants continue to face, Filipina wives married to Korean men are able to capitalize on the legal pathway to citizenship allowed by the South Korean state—a policy very much driven by the government’s long-term demographic concerns. Eschewing efforts by various feminist and civil society groups to apply the “discourses of victimhood and trafficking” to them (147), marriage migrants instead claim the identity of “citizen-mothers” to make salient the legitimacy of their marriages and families, as well as their place in Korean society. Migrant workers, on the other hand, are not afforded the possibility of citizenship under the current Employment Permit System, a barrier that has led to an increase in the proportion of undocumented workers relative to their legal counterparts.
Although Choo details dramatic and harrowing run-ins with immigration officers during “crackdowns,” we also learn about the tangible and emotional support provided to migrant workers by a densely networked ethnic community in Factorytown, largely revolving around the Catholic Church. Unlike marriage migrants and workers, however, hostesses serving American military stationed in South Korea are unable to take advantage of this community. There are several reasons for their within-group exclusion, including moral sensibilities surrounding their occupation and the fractionalizing competition for American GI clients and boyfriends. In short, Choo successfully explicates the differential impact of heterogeneously structured opportunities for the three groups of Filipina migrant women and perhaps more importantly, documents how members of each group exercise their agency when navigating and challenging the unique barriers they face. This rich ethnography is the first to provide such comparative analysis of a fast-growing immigrant population that is reshaping who South Koreans are and what South Korea is. As such, this book should be on the reading list for anyone who wants to better understand the social revolution that is sweeping South Korea today.
Paul Y. Chang
Harvard University, Cambridge, USA
pp. 835-837