I trace how conceptions of citizenship have transformed in post-1990 South Korea, focusing on the major formations of and shifts in Korean citizenship, as well as on the evolution of nationality laws concerning diaspora Koreans. I also examine legacy migrants’ perspectives on citizenship and legal belonging. The process of citizen-making, which unfolds through the dynamics between an “enterprising” South Korean state and the “entrepreneurial” strategies incorporated by the legacy migrants in this study, largely rests on the interplay between emotionally charged ethnic nationalism and economic mobility driven by neoliberal global capitalism, both of which in turn have rearticulated and reconfigured the borders of South Korean citizenship and belonging. As a result, various forms of conditional and contingent citizenship—statuses that are neither fully admitted by the state nor fully committed to by returnees—have been produced.
