Making and Faking Kinship

Caren Freeman

Description

In the years leading up to and directly following rapprochement with China in 1992, the South Korean government looked to ethnic Korean (Chosonjok) brides and laborers from northeastern China to restore productivity to its industries and countryside. South Korean officials and the media celebrated these overtures not only as a pragmatic solution to population problems but also as a patriotic project of reuniting ethnic Koreans after nearly fifty years of Cold War separation.As Caren Freeman's fieldwork in China and South Korea shows, the attempt to bridge the geopolitical divide in the name of Korean kinship proved more difficult than any of the parties involved could have imagined. Discriminatory treatment, artificially suppressed wages, clashing gender logics, and the criminalization of so-called runaway brides and undocumented workers tarnished the myth of ethnic homogeneity and exposed the contradictions at the heart of South Korea's transnational kin-making project.Unlike migrant brides who could acquire citizenship, migrant workers were denied the rights of long-term settlement, and stringent quotas restricted their entry. As a result, many Chosonjok migrants arranged paper marriages and fabricated familial ties to South Korean citizens to bypass the state apparatus of border control. Making and Faking Kinship depicts acts of "counterfeit kinship," false documents, and the leaving behind of spouses and children as strategies implemented by disenfranchised people to gain mobility within the region's changing political economy.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique
• Industrial relations
• South Korea
• China
• Migration

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 22 novembre 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780801462818
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Making and Faking Kinship

Making and Faking Kinship

Marriage and Labor Migration between China and South Korea

Caren Freeman

Cornell University Press Ithaca and London

The Korea Foundation has provided financial assistance for the undertaking of this publication project.

Copyright © 2011 by Cornell University

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.

First published 2011 by Cornell University Press Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Freeman, Caren, 1968–  Making and faking kinship : marriage and labor migration between China and South Korea / Caren Freeman.  p. cm.  Includes bibliographical references and index.  ISBN 9780801449581 (alk. paper)  1. Intercountry marriage—Korea (South) 2. Intercountry marriage— China. 3. Women immigrants—Korea (South) 4. Foreign workers, Chinese—Korea (South) 5. Rural families—Korea (South) 6. Family policy—Korea (South) I. Title.  HQ1032.F74 2011  306.85'2095195—dc23 2011022279

Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such materials include vegetablebased, lowVOC inks and acidfree papers that are recycled, totally chlorinefree, or partly composed of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at www. cornellpress.cornell.edu.

Cloth printing

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9

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For my parents

Acknowledgments

Contents

Notes on Language and Translations

Introduction

Part I. Migrant Brides and the Pact of Gender, Kinship, Nation

1. Choso˘njok Maidens and Farmer Bachelors

2. Brides and Brokers under Suspicion

3. Gender Logics in Conflict

Part II. Migrant Workers, Counterfeit Kinship, and Split Families

4. Faking Kinship

5. Flexible Families, Fragile Marriages

6. A Failed National Experiment?

References Index

ix xiii

1

31 69 109

153 193 227

245 257

Acknowledgments

This book was more than a decade in the making. Over this long pe riod, I received a tremendous amount of support—financial, intellectual, logistical, emotional, and familial—from many different sources. The people to whom I owe the greatest thanks remain anonymous in order to protect their privacy: the Choso˘njok and South Korean families and indi viduals who gave so generously of their time and let me into their hearts and homes. I am especially grateful to my host families in Harbin, Mudan jiang, and Creek Road Village who cared for me as if I were one of their own. Without them this project would not have been possible. While in the field, I was sustained by many friendships, new and old. ˘ I thank Shin Seungnam (“Onni”) for sharing her home with me in Seoul, answering my incessant questions, and helping me track down informa tion related to my research. Jung Hyeouk assisted me in countless ways as a close friend and confidante. I am also grateful to Shin Jongjin for his readi ness to help me, whether in Seoul or in Charlottesville. I could not have secured and carried out interviews with dozens of South Korean farmers