Contentious Politics in the Nascent Formation of Ethnic Communities in Korea

Increasing flows of migrant workers and foreign brides, and their residential settlement have become an important component of the social fabric of Korean society, challenging the myth of ethnic homogeneity. I investigate the nascent formation of ethnically concentrated residential communities both in the city of Seoul and across the country, most notably in Kyŏnggi Province. At the national level, ethnically concentrated residential communities have been shaped around two main spatial zones: industrial complex areas and cheap segregated residential areas. They are mostly in an early formation of ethnic communities with the characteristics of ethnic diversity due to the relatively scattered geographic dispersion of any ethnicity. However, ethnic concentration at the local level has been coalescing on the basis of ethnic nationality and further shows a distinctive pattern of ethnic communities and even ethnic enclaves particularly for Chinese ethnicity, including Korean Chinese of Chosŏnjok. A few local ethnic communities are being concomitantly shaped both by socio-ethnic segregation and spatial residential exclusion. Policy proposals for residential settlement reveal both ambiguity and contentious politics between national and local administrative levels. The policy focus at the national level has tended to remain basically on maintaining the principle of enforced assimilation, displaying top-down policies based on administrative convenience, being squarely aimed at providing one-sided service provisions for targeted migrants, but resulting in de-empowering migrants and weakening autonomy of local organizations. We should thus facilitate a distinctive local governance mode with all stakeholders and take a step forward to realize a cultural strategy for mutually beneficial multicultural co-existence as well as for the vitality of ethnic communities and Korean society as a whole.