“Fake” or “Real” Marriage? Gender, Age, “Race” and Class in the Construction of Un/desirability of Marriage Migrants in South Korea

Abstract

This paper examines the link between the regulation of marriage migration and national boundary-making processes in South Korea through the analysis of “fraudulent marriage” discourses. Corresponding to the goals of the Korean government based on the gendered and racialized construction of the Korean nation, populations of marriage migrants are hierarchized according to various intersecting axes of gender, age, class, and “race.” Based on a critical race and intersectional feminist framework and critical security studies, I examine multiple intersections of the social relations, which hierarchize marriage migrants. While certain marriage migrants are constructed as desirable because they embody particular sets of characteristics (namely childbearing female marriage migrants from developing countries), other marriage migrants outside these parameters are actively constructed as undesirable and suspected of fraudulent marriage. The discriminatory distinctions drawn among differentially racialized and gendered marriage migrants raise significant social justice concerns. The article concludes with a brief discussion of strategies pursued by marriage migrants and their Korean spouses to undermine discourses of fraudulent marriages.

Gender, Race, Culture and Identity at the Internal Border of Marriage Migration of Vietnamese Women in South Korea

“…In 2014 Vietnamese women constituted the second largest group of foreign wives in Korea after Chosŏn female marriage migrants (Park & Morash, 2016). The picture was much the same in 2017, with Chosŏn wives representing 31% of the total, and Vietnamese female marriage migrants at 25% (Lee-An, 2020). The Chosŏn (Korean) nation upon which the Korean Constitution is based dates from the fourteenth century and although it has been disrupted by territorial disputes, wars and invasions, it forms an important part of the collective national imagination.…”

“…In response to the abuse of marriage migrants, as well as claims by Korean spouses and families of fraud, the Marriage Brokerage law came into force in 2008, with subsequent revisions in 2010 and 2012. According to Lee-An (2020), the legislation arose in part from the activism of feminists and Vietnamese students (who were studying in Korea at that time), who actively and publicly mobilized to criticize the commercialized nature of marriage brokerages which commodified women, and the gendered and racialized stereotyping embedded in the process. As a result, the Marriage Brokers Business Management Act was legislated in 2007 to prevent discriminatory practices in international marriage processes (Lee-An, 2020, p. 133).…”

Towards intersectional approaches to gendered change in Antarctic research

“…The versatility of intersectionality is illustrated in the variety of ways it has been effectively put to use: for example, to address compounding inequalities on the basis of gender and caste in India (Kapilashrami et al 2016; Banerjee & Ghosh 2018); to evaluate the effects of affirmative action on Black women in South African businesses (Klasen & Minasyan 2021); to improve national data collection and anti-discrimination legal frameworks in Australia (Blackham & Temple 2020); and to deepen understanding of the challenges faced by migrants in around the world (e.g. Lafleur & Romero 2018; Lee-An 2020).…”