Migrant Laborers As Social Race In The Interplay Of Capitalism, Nationalism, and Multiculturalism: A Korean Case.

On the basis of my long-term ethnographic research, I discuss the social formation of race and class by delineating some characteristics of the Korean experiences of labor migration within the system of global economy Since the early 1990s, there has been an increasing tendency in many small Korean factories to use migrant laborers who can be paid lower wages than the native Korean labor force. I examine the experiences of both migrants and Koreans from three different perspectives: policy, reality, and ideology. There are three points of significance. First, I discuss how under globalized capitalism a new social structure has formed within Korea. Second, I attempt to explain why the explosion of public discourse on multiculturalism does not reduce the racism suffered by migrant laborers in everyday life. Many Koreans still hold racist attitudes toward migrant laborers and perceive them as racially inferior to themselves. Third, I examine migrant laborers' limited agency as a way of reconsidering transnational characteristics which migrant laborers employ in Korea and their motherlands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]