Prospects for a multicultural Korean society: Minority politics with a focus on Afro-Koreans

Abstract

This thesis looks into the potential towards a multicultural South Korean society and possible improvement of minority politics with a focus on Afro-Asians in South Korea. The main research question is to what extend the Afro-Asian community can define a multicultural South Korea and challenge the nationalist discourse. It is aimed to look into the government policies to be able to understand the inclusion and exclusion mechanisms of the state towards the minorities and look into the limits of the multicultural policies towards this minority group. It will be maintained that although there has been an inclination to adopt multicultural policies for the integration of mixed-race individuals living in South Korea, its sphere of influence has been significantly limited and an effective policy-making is an important step for achieving multiculturalism. The implied policies do not necessarily change the public opinion and attitude towards multiculturalism. Although Koreans’ view on foreigners, multicultural family and mixed-race individuals seem to be positive, there is still discrimination against them, decreased in its intensity. Hence, it will be argued that there are complex layers to multiculturalism in South Korea when the state-led policies, public opinion and personal biographies of mixed-race Koreans looked into. In other words, there are different value systems attached to certain multi-ethnics in South Korea as celebrity and non-celebrity cases highlight. As the multicultural policies took initiative in the late 1990s, due to the influx of migrants, this thesis will look into the initiation of these policies until today in South Korea.