From the ‘Long-lost Brothers’ to Co-ethnic ‘Other’: The Construction of Joseonjok Migrants as a Security Threat in South Korea (66241)
Session Chair: Robert Hamilton
Sunday, January 8, 2023 (13:15)
Session: Session 1
Room: Live-Stream E
Presentation Type:Live-Stream Presentation
Amid the heightened anti-Chinese sentiments in Korea in recent years, Korean Chinese migrants, Joseonjok, have been increasingly targeted as security concerns. Despite the kinship, language fluency, cultural similarity, and the centrality of their migration history in Korean national history, they have been conspicuously established as ‘other’ in their ancestral homeland. The significance of this case is that, on the one hand, they have been accommodated as a part of the Korean nation with extended rights in the policy realm over the years; on the other hand, they have been increasingly perceived as a threat to social order, public safety and to the interests of South Korea, specifically by the public rather than traditional security policy elites.
Drawing on the current situation of Joseonjok migrants in South Korea, this paper explores the process of ‘othering’ and the construction of Joseonjok migrants as a threat. To this end, the study primarily focuses on the role of the media as the most powerful actor in the otherization process and analyzes the media representation of Joseonjok migrants by posing the following questions: How have the mainstream media portrayed the Joseonjok migrants over time? More specifically, how have the media representations constructed a shared perception of a threat, especially over the past decade? In addition, the study discusses another critical aspect that contributed to the construction of Joseonjok migrants as a threat to the Korean state: the rise of China and the question of ‘homeland,’ which intensified the threat perception of the Korean public.
Authors:
Seung Min Lee, Waseda University, Japan
About the Presenter(s)
Ms Seung Min Lee is a University Doctoral Student at Waseda University in Japan
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