Long-Lost Kin or Guest Workers? South Korean Policies Towards the Korean Diaspora

Abstract

There is a vast majority of scholarly articles on differences between ethnic preferences in migration policies of Western and East Asian states. While focusing on the rationale of the state behind these policies, scholars pay little attention on how these type of policies influence the targeted ethnic groups. This paper provides a different perspective on the same topic and gives a view from below. It reveals how ethnic migrants are affected by return migration policies of more developed ethnic ‘homeland’ in the example of South Korea. The participant observation studies conducted with ethnic Koreans from Uzbekistan in South Korea in their daily activities and work are analyzed in this paper. The findings show a generation of people who are trapped between their country of residence and more developed ethnic ‘homeland,’ where they go because of economic hardships they face, but cannot ‘return’ there in its full meaning, because of their de facto cheap labor status.