Browsing by Author "Holopainen, Eeva"

This thesis examines the notions of ethnicity, nation, and belonging in the context of South Korea, in order to investigate whether the scope of these notions will allow the reproduction of new South Koreans from multicultural subjects through education. South Koreans have traditionally considered themselves a strictly homogenous group: in order to stake a claim on Koreanness, one must meet the requirements of being Korean both in body as well as in practice. During the last two decades, the South Korean state has switched its national narrative into one of a multicultural nation, discarding the ethnonationalist definition of Koreanness. This thesis aims to answer the question of what kind of notion of Koreanness is present in the education of “multicultural” children. Does the educational process aim to transform these Othered children into Koreans? Is there even a potential for such transformation in the context of the South Korean society? How does the process work in practice? The data of this thesis was collected through participant observation during a three-month long fieldwork period at a South Korean afterschool educational institution catering to children with immigrant backgrounds. The data consists of descriptions of the centre’s educational programme and structure, and a field diary depicting the everyday interactions between the adult Korean staff and the Othered children, as well as among the children. The requirements of being Korean in body and in practice were both salient in the educational setting of the centre. Being Korean in practice presupposed a suitable command of learnable skills such as the Korean language and the proper Korean way of studying. The children each participated in the learning process from more or less peripheral localities, defined by the limitations of their relative competence. Their positionality in regard to Koreanness was dynamic and under constant change. Nevertheless, the explicit and implicit everyday practices of the adult staff upheld the requirement of having Korean blood or being Korean in body, which restricted the children’s positioning in the boundary-making process of defining Koreanness. Although the current national narrative of the South Korean state emphasises the notion of a multicultural nation, the ethnographic data of this study suggests that the traditional folk definitions of Koreanness have not changed. The requirements of being Korean both in body as well as in practice seem to still be dominant in everyday life. “Multicultural” children are unable to fulfil the former requirement but are nevertheless situated as subjects of the state and civil society’s multiculturalist educational project in regard to the latter. Through a social learning process, they may be able to approximate full membership in the Korean society, but reaching it seems ever elusive.