This paper explores the politics of scale of women marriage migrants in a rural village in South Korea with particular focus on their agency. Drawing on a qualitative case study, I show the way these women deal with multilayered discriminations and negotiate their intersecting identities in and through daily spaces and scales. The study finds that they challenge the imposed identities, which are poor, sexualized and passive, by constructing scales of referencing, recognition and resistance. This includes constructing transnational social fields of alternative ethnic communities, the home as a safe space and the body as a site of resistance and self-imagination. This research is grounded on the agency-focused migration literature and the feminist approach to the micro-spatial politics in an intra-Asian context.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
BecketClareMaceyMarie2001“Race, Gender and Sexuality: The Oppression of Multiculturalism,”Women's Studies International Forum, 24(3/4):309–319.
2.
BullochHannahFabinyiMichael2009“Transnational Relationships, Transforming Selves: Filipinas Seeking Husbands Abroad,”The Asian Pacific Journal of Anthropology, 10(2):129–142.
3.
BurgessChris2004“(Re)constructing Identities: International Marriage Migrants as Potential Agents of Social Change in a Globalizing Japan,”Asian Studies Review, 28(September):223–242.
4.
ChunChristine S.Y.1996“The Mail-Order Bride Industry: The Perpetuation of Transnational Economic Inequalities and Stereotypes,”University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Economic Law, 17(4):1155–1208.
5.
ConstableNicole, ed. 2005aCross-Border Marriages: Gender and Mobility in Transnational Asia. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
6.
ConstableNicole, ed. 2005b“Introduction: Cross-Border Marriages, Gendered Mobility, and Global Hypergamy.” In Cross-Border Marriages: Gender and Mobility in Transnational Asia. Edited by ConstableNicole. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
7.
ConstableNicole, ed. 2003“A Transnational Perspective on Divorce and Marriage: Filipina Wives and Worker,”Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 10(2):163–180.
8.
DanneckerPetra2005“Transnational Migration and the Transformation of Gender Relations: The Case of Bangladesh Labour Migrants,”Current Sociology, 53(4):655–674.
9.
DelaneyD.LeitnerHelga1997“The Political Construction of Scale,”Political Geography, 16(2):93–97.
10.
DevasahayamTeresa W.HuangShirlenaYeohBrenda2004“Southeast Asian Migrant Women: Navigating Borders, Negotiating Scales,”Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 25(2):135–140.
11.
DwyerClair2000“Negotiating Diasporic Identities: Young British South Asian Muslim Women,”Women's Studies International Forum, 23(4):475–486.
12.
FaierLieba2008“Runaway Stories: The Underground Micromovements of Filipina Oyomesan in Rural Japan,”Cultural Anthropology, 23(4):630–659.
13.
FreemanCaren2005“Marrying Up and Marrying Down: The Paradoxes of Marital Mobility for Chosonjok Brides in South Korea.” In Cross-Border Marriages: Gender and Mobility in Transnational Asia. Edited by ConstableNicole. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
GoldringLuin1998“The Power of Status in Transnational Social Fields.” In Transnationalism from Below. Edited by SmithMichael P.GuarnizoLuis E., New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.
16.
HanGeon-Soo2006“Family Life and Cultural Encounter of Foreign Wives in Rural Area,”Korean Cultural Anthropology, 39(1):195–243. (in Korean)
17.
HanKuk-Yom2010“The Importance of Transnational Networks in Asia to Prevent Human Trafficking in Marriage Migrant women in South Korea.” Paper presented in Seoul International Conference against Human Trafficking in Migrant Women, 21 June, available at http://www.wmigrant.org/xe2/30762. (in Korean)
18.
HooksBell1990Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics. Boston: South End Press.
19.
HsiaHsiao-Chuan2007“Imaged and Imagined Threat to the Nation: The Media Construction of the ‘Foreign Brides’ Phenomenon' as Social Problems in Taiwan,”Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 8(1):55–85.
JungHyunjoo2012“Paradoxical Spaces of Migrant Women: Incorporating Spatiality into the Theorization of Migrant Women,”Gender and Society, 5(1), forthcoming. (in Korean)
23.
JungHyunjoo2008“Migration, Gender and Scale: New Trends and Issues in the Feminist Migration Studies,”Journal of the Korean Geographical Society, 43(6):894–913. (in Korean)
24.
KimHyun MiKimMin-JeongKimJung Sun2008“‘Safe Marriage Migration’?: Migration Process and Experiences of Mongolian Marriage Migrants in South Korea,”Journal of Korean Women's Studies, 24(1):121–155. (in Korean)
25.
KimJung Sun2010“The Politics of Transnational Belonging from Below: On the Experiences of Filipino Marriage-Migrant Women,”Journal of Korean Women's Studies, 26(2):1–39. (in Korean)
26.
LanPei-Chia2003a“Negotiating Social Boundaries and Private Zones: The Micropolitics of Employing Migrant Domestic Workers,”Social Problems, 50(4):525–549.
27.
LanPei-Chia2003b““They Have More Money but I Speak Better English!” Transnational Encounters,” between Filipina Domestics and Taiwanese Employers,”Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 10(2):133–161.
28.
LauserAndrea2008“Philippine Women on the Move: Marriage across Borders,”International Migration, 46(4):85–110.
29.
LeeHye-Kyung2006“Feminization of Migration and Transnational Families of Korean-Chinese Migrants in South Korea,”Korean Sociology, 40(5):258–298. (in Korean)
30.
LeeSun-Ju2008Development of Social Services for Marriage Migrant Women. Seoul: Korean Women's Development Institute. (in Korean)
31.
MahlerSarahPessarPatricia2001“Gendered Geographies of Power: Analyzing Gender across Transnational Spaces,”Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 7(4):441–459.
32.
MandelJennifer L.2004“Mobility Matters: Women's Livelihood Strategies in Porto Novo, Benin,”Gender, Place and Culture, 11(2):257–285.
33.
MarstonSally A.2000“The Social Construction of Scale,”Progress in Human Geography, 24(2):219–242.
34.
MasseyDoreen1994Space, Place and Gender. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
35.
MattinglyDoreen J.2001“The Home and the World: Domestic Service and International Networks of Caring Labor,”Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 91(2):370–386.
36.
McDowellLinda1999Gender, Identity and Place: Understanding Feminist Geographies. Cambridge: Polity Press.
NagarRicha1998“Communal Discourses, Marriage and the Politics of Gendered Social Boundaries among South Asian Immigrants in Tanzania,”Gender, Place and Culture, 52(2):117–139.
39.
NagarRicha2002“Locating Globalization: Feminist (Re)readings of the Subjects and Spaces of Globalization,”Economic Geography, 78(3):381–400.
40.
OxfeldEllen2005“Cross-Border Hypergamy? Marriage Exchanges in a Transnational Hakka Community.” In Cross-Border Marriages: Gender and Mobility in Transnational Asia. Edited by ConstableNicole. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
41.
PessarPatricia R.2001“Women's Political Consciousness and Empowerment in Local, National and Transnational Contexts: Guatemalan Refugees and Returnees,”Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 7(4):461–500.
42.
PiperNicola2003“Wife or Worker? Worker or Wife? Marriage and Cross-Border Migration in Contemporary Japan,”International Journal of Population Geography, 9(6):457–469.
43.
RobinsonKathryn2007“Marriage Migration, Gender Transformations, and Family Values in the ‘Global Ecumene’,”Gender, Place and Culture, 14(4):483–497.
44.
SilveyRachel2004“Transnational Migration and the Gender Politics of Scale: Indonesian Domestic Workers in Saudi Arabia,”Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 25(2):141–155.
45.
SuzukiNobue2005“Tripartite Desires: Filipina-Japanese Marriages and Fantasies of Transnational Traversal.” In Cross-Border Marriages: Gender and Mobility in Transnational Asia. Edited by ConstableNicole. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
46.
SuzukiNobue2000“Between Two Shores: Transnational Projects and Filipina Wives in/from Japan,”Women's Studies International Forum, 23(4):431–444.
47.
ThaiHung Cam2005“Clashing Dreams in the Vietnamese Diaspora: Highly Educated Overseas Brides and Low-Wage U.S. Husbands.” In Cross-Border Marriages: Gender and Mobility in Transnational Asia. Edited by ConstableNicole. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
48.
WangHong-Zen2007“Hidden Spaces of Resistance of the Subordinated: Case Studies from Vietnamese Female Migrant Partners in Taiwan,”International Migration Journal, 41(3):706–727.
49.
WangHong-ZenChangShu-Ming2002“The Commodification of International Marriages: Cross-Border Marriage Business in Taiwan and Vietnam,”International Migration, 40(6):93–116.
50.
YeohBrendaHuangShirlena2000““Home” and “Away”: Foreign Domestic Workers and Negotiations of Diasporic Identity in Singapore,”Women's Studies International Forum, 23(4):413–429.
51.
YeohBrendaHuangShirlena1998“Negotiating Public Space: Strategies and Styles of Migrant Female Domestic Workers in Singapore,”Urban Studies, 35(3):683–602.
