Resistance to ‘Integration’ by marriage migrants

Resistance to ‘Integration’
By Marriage Migrants
- Implications to the debate and practice on citizenship

By Jiyoung LeeAn,
ARENA (Asian Regional Exchange for New Alternatives)

Marriage Migration in South Korea

How do we access and address the social integration policy of the state to integrate migrants to the host society? What are the deeper policy implications of such an approach to the problems of the existing citizenship and to the prospect of new visions on citizenship? Who are excluded or included in the so-called integration policy? These are the questions I would like to raise on my topic today, taking the recent situation in South Korea as a case, and I will draw at the end some implications for further discussion and practice.

Since the mid-90s in the so-called ‘age of migration’, South Korea has become one of the destination countries of migrants[2]. As we all know, the process of marriage migration is not simply a physical move of one individual but also a social process which has its impacts on both receiving and sending societies socially, politically, and culturally as well as economically. Migrants including marriage migrants experience the move of social locality, dislocation of the self, and also confront discriminative environments based on gender, race and class in their host country. Faced with discrimination and diverse forms of exclusion, they start to struggle and negotiate to belong to the host society, but for marriage migrants in a particular way.
Likewise, the rapid increase of migrants during the last few decades has significantly affected the Korean society, which has identified and internalized themselves as one homogenized group with the notion of one Korean-ness. The concept of the national, particularly in Korea, is based on the myth of the same-blood nation. In the process of modern Korean nation-state building, it has operated as an ideology to justify sacrifice of internal members and exclusion of others. Diverse forms of international migration have been rapidly expanding during the last few decades, however, it seems that the concept of the national and the concept of Korean-ness are breaking down and facing serious challenges.
Recent resistance to the Social Integration Programme (henceforth SIP) proposed by Ministry of Justice poses interesting questions and challenges, and can serve as a good example to draw further implications. So now, through this case, let me look at the mechanism of exclusion and inclusion of a nation-state[3] which continuously stratify migrants (and nationals) based on national interests such as the so-called global competitiveness. This may well be the trick of citizenship structure in the first place.


Mechanism of Inclusion and Exclusion of Korean Government

Korean government has stratified migrants (substantially nationals as well) into non-citizen, temporary migrants, immigrants, denizenship holders, and national, etc., and to each member differential privileges, rights, and benefits are given respectively. On the one hand, Korean Immigration Service recently announced that if foreigners invest more than $ 500,000 and hire more than 5 employees, they would be entitled to have denizenship (residential rights) regardless of the length of their stay[4]. On the other hand, the Ministry of Justice has reinforced the crack down of undocumented workers even implementing quota system to arrest undocumented workers. This approach is mainly justified in the name of national interest or improving global competitiveness of South Korea.

The Korean government has approached family policies mainly based on a heterosexual-oriented family ideology based on gendered roles such as husband as breadwinner and wife as housewife, and thus assumes marriage migrants as homogenized groups expected to follow certain roles such as ‘good’ wife, mother, and daughter in law[5], etc. This is the state’s family ideology for a good citizen. Their legal status, therefore, is supposed to be secured mainly when they perform the expected roles. Priority of most governmental policies and programmes for marriage migrants is on multicultural families instead of individual woman. In other words, their rights are mediated through their status of wife and mother, an appendix of the family.

According to the newly established law called “Multicultural Family Support Law[6],” marriage migrants are supposed to follow four consecutive steps in their lives in Korea; 1st-entrance and formation of family, 2nd- pregnancy and delivery, 3rd- Upbringing of children, 4th-entry into labour market. When women follow the steps consecutively, they can become beneficiaries of social welfare (Kim, 2008). The problem is that this approach does not reflect diverse processes and patterns which marriage migrants go through in Korea. Also the fact that they are regarded as a homogeneous group following one single path reveals patriarchal perceptions of Korean government towards women’s lives(Kim, 2008). Key agendas in the governmental policies are also focused mainly on maternity, protection of children, family relationship, and domestic violence (Jung, 2007). Right to work, however, does not get reflected in those policies; though around 60 % of marriage migrants in Korea are currently involved in paid work and 93% of the rest also desire to participate in the labour market[7] (Ministry of Public Health and Welfare, 2005). Also, attention to illuminate marriage migrants as political actors has not been sufficient.

“In spite of continuous process of exclusion and inclusion by the nation-state, marriage migrants continue to struggle and negotiate with their surrounding environment to become a full member of Korean society.”Through these examples, we can find out the ‘janus(double)-faced nature of citizenship’ which operates simultaneously as a mechanism of both inclusion and exclusion (Lister 1997)[8]. The potential question that remains to us is, “who can and who cannot have the full membership in society?” Faced with this exclusionary structure of host country, how can we, migrant groups, resist this exclusionary structure of host country? So far, one of the aims of migrant movement in Korea has been to improve human rights of migrants and to help them overcome vulnerable conditions and environments since many migrants confront discriminative, racialised and gendered environment in Korea. Apart from breaking down the existing discrimination and human rights violation, however, we need to challenge this exclusionary structure of citizenship governance. Re-interpreting citizenship as negotiating or contested process is also required in the sense.


Struggle against Social Integration Programme and Citizenship Movement

In spite of continuous process of exclusion and inclusion by the nation-state, marriage migrants continue to struggle and negotiate with their surrounding environment to become a full member of Korean society. More often than not, we have more diverse and collective voices of marriage migrants heard in the public trying to overcome discrimination, prejudice and violence. In recent political activities, many migrants were in the forefront to voice out their concerns. Though limited in scale yet, diverse migrant communities are now more organized, more actively cooperating and engaging with other local NGOs and social movements.

Last march, the Ministry of Justice drafted the social integration programme, requiring a maximum 230 hours mandatory course, mostly Korean language class, as one of the preconditions for marriage migrants to acquire Korean nationality.

In response to this, on April 14, 2008, marriage migrant groups in Korea, including 58 migrant organizations held press conferences criticizing the lack of understanding on the part of the government about marriage migrants’ situations and the shortage of gender-sensitive and multicultural principles since SIP focuses mainly on migrant women’s assimilation in Korean society. The press conference received significant attention from media and the public alike. It led to the Ministry of Justice to hold open (public) hearings on SIP and present another proposal which is not compulsory, but an incentive programme[9] for marriage migrants. Later, on July 23, an Open Forum Discussion titled Review on Social “Integration” Programme was organized by Marriage Migrant Group Network to advocate their concern. Finally, though temporarily, the Ministry of Justice decided not to apply this compulsory programme to marriage migrants. This struggle was a good opportunity to empower both Korean activists and migrants. Through this experience, we could find out the possibilities to recognize contextualized agency of migrant women and recast them as political actors[10]. Their endeavour to acquire rights and engage in social movements as a process of struggle to ‘become citizens’ or ‘acquire citizenship’ can be interpreted as a citizenship movement.

Becoming a member of the Korean society or belonging to the Korean society, however, cannot be confined to becoming a Korean national. Many migrant movements in destination tend to assume that national belonging of marriage migrants lies in the host society. But, we should not define or reduce citizenship movement to being and becoming a national. In the open forum last July, Lee Min who came to Korea as a marriage migrant 11 years ago from China insisted that “most urgent and important thing for marriage migrants was to have stable residence status regardless of whether they want to have Korean nationality or not.” At the same time she said “even though I had residence card, I was not accepted as Korean in my daily life and Korean society treated me as a foreigner.” She also pointed out an important thing that not all marriage migrants want Korean nationality if their legal status is guaranteed. From her remarks, we discover the necessity that the subject of citizenship has to be discussed and explored beyond finding one belonging to a nation-state. Perhaps in that way it would lead us to pay attention to the possibility of citizenship which transcends nation-state as well as combining it with universal human rights regime.


Summary and Implications

One point we can take from the case is that the move of migrants has created cracks in the modern concept of the ‘national’ and citizenship through their struggles to become a member of the host society. This is done by questioning the validity of the existing exclusive structures of citizenship. On the other hand, we also witness border controls reinforced and stratification of each member in the host society accelerated. This is a move by the state to strengthen the notion of national belonging in their control of citizenship. These two movements affect each other, as a constantly fluctuating negotiation and contesting over citizenship, thereby shifting the line that divide between exclusion and inclusion. This shifting, we have to note, is created by social struggles and resistance of marriage migrants to the so-called social integration policy.

What are the implications we can draw from this? First, struggles of marriage migrants to acquire not only formal citizenship but also substantive citizenship are on the rise, challenging the traditional double standards of the state such as South Korea[11]. How to illuminate and construct those resistances and struggles as a new citizenship movement remains our job. What we need here is to re-interpret citizenship as negotiating or contested process. Therefore, a new citizenship movement is needed where being and becoming citizens in a host society should be a freedom and reward of labour of individuals, not an imposed obligation by some fictional ideology of blood or family.

Therefore, social movements of marriage migrants should also challenge this exclusionary structure of citizenship governance, along with breaking down the existing discrimination and human rights violation. This means social movements on marriage migration issue also needs to question the socially and paternally imposed criteria and role of what constitutes a good woman and the hierarchy of the patriarchal imagination of ‘national women’ and ‘foreign women’. This means there is a significant common ground for marriage migrant groups and other social groups to stand and act together for redefining the way of becoming a citizen in a society.

Lastly, physical, psychological and other movements across borders and ensuing struggles and negotiations of how to belong or not to belong involve much more than a legal status. Therefore, if we refuse to define or reduce citizenship movement to being and becoming a national, there can be many new agenda on redefining what citizenship should be in today’s world of migration. For marriage migration, it is too often and too carelessly assumed that they will belong to the host society, through a family. But it is clear that marriage does not pose an immediate remedy to belonging, and at the same time citizenship is not an end of migration. It is also clear that ‘social integration’ is not an end of stratified or hierarchical citizenship, but a different beginning. In addition, more human rights, gender-sensitive, power-sensitive and equality-oriented approaches are needed in appreciating the participation of migrating individuals, and this is a step forward for alternative visions of citizenship. ##
[1] Korean government officially uses the term, “Marriage Immigrant Women” which presume permanent settlement in Korea. But to reveal mobility of women, I call them marriage migrants.
[2] According to Korea National Statistical Offices(www.nso.go.kr), total 1,066,273 migrants stay in Korea and among them, 110,362 are marriage migrants[2] as of 2007. More specifically, international marriage is composed of 11.1% of the total marriages in Korea and 88.1% of the foreign spouses are women, including those from China (57.3%), Vietnam (19.6%), Japan (19.6%), and the Philippines (4.6%).
[3] Nira Uval Daivis (1991:61) opines that “Constructing boundaries according to various inclusionary and exclusionary criteria, which relate to ethnic and racial divisions as well as class and gender divisions is one of the main arenas of struggle concerning citizenship that remain completely outside the agenda of Marshallian theories of citizenship.”
[4] Press release of Korean Immigration Service on August 4, 2008.
[5] In rural areas, even giving the award of devoted daughter in law to marriage migrants has become prevalent.
[6] This law became effective in September, 2008.
[7] Piper and Roces(2004) say in their book called “wife or worker” that distinction between women as migrant workers and women as migrants for marriage are obscure in reality.
[8] Lister (1997) said, at the same time “while not denying the ways in which legal definitions of citizenship can exclude outsiders, as an ideal it can also provide a potent weapon in the hands of disadvantaged and oppressed groups of insider.”
[9] According to the incentive programme, if marriage migrants take the course of SIP, the waiting time required to acquire Korean nationality will be reduced than usual.
[10] Meanwhile, a "Filipina" marriage migrant, who has Korean nationality, was nominated to a proportionate representative candidate for the National Assembly by a newly established party in 2008. This is the first time for such a case in Korea. She did not win the seat in the National Assembly because her party did not get enough votes, but she did show the possibility of access to formal politics despite being a marriage migrant(for more details: http://www.arenaonline.org/mmia/mmianewsletter1.html)
[11] Currently, the debate about introduction of dual citizenship starts to emerge into Korean society. Recently the Ministry of Justice announced that they will draft one law to permit dual citizenship to certain groups such as high-skilled labours, or children of Korean national who are born in foreign countries. But they did not clarify whether it will apply to marriage migrants and Chinese immigrants. This clearly shows that how Korean government perceive and stratify migrants based on economic contribution. Migrants are mainly regarded as a tool for development, not as respected human being.