Introduction

Homing ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ji-Yeon O. Jo
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
Social Spaces ◽  
Global Modernity ◽  
Nationality Law

In this chapter I provide an overview of the book and introduce its conceptual and theoretical articulations. Using the frameworks of affect and global modernity, I delineate the trajectories of mobility involved in later-generation diaspora Koreans’ migration to contemporary South Korea. This serves as a springboard for laying out theories of borders and belonging that help make sense of legacy migrants’ trajectories and experiences. In outlining the book’s chapters, I explain how each adds a new dimension of understanding to transborder belonging. I also suggest that four borders—social spaces, citizenship and nationality law, Korean as a heritage language, and family—intersect to make and remake the notion of Korean peoplehood.

Shifting Affective Linguascapes

Homing ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ji-Yeon O. Jo
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
Korean Language ◽  
Heritage Languages ◽  
Affective Dimension ◽  
Korean Society ◽  
South Korean

I explore how Korean as a heritage language influences and is influenced by returnees’ membership status and affective belonging both in diaspora and in South Korea. After tracing the politics and policies that affect the Korean language in diaspora, I incorporate legacy migrants’ narratives about their linguistic experiences in South Korea. Their stories provide an opportunity to illuminate the affective dimension as it relates to the heritage language and challenge us to move beyond proficiency-oriented understandings of language. I scrutinize the affective dimension of language, giving particular attention to the notions of proficiency and authenticity, which often lend certain meaning to and shape migrant relationships with the heritage language during their homing experiences. As I will show, the meaning and value of languages, especially heritage languages, are often interpreted differently by the returnees and by South Korean society.

Homing

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ji-Yeon O. Jo
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South Korea ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Spaces ◽  
Korean Language ◽  
Ethnic Nationalism ◽  
Commonwealth Of Independent States ◽  
Independent States

Homing Diaspora Koreans revolves around the experiences of legacy migrants—later-generation diaspora Koreans who have migrated to South Korea—from China, the Commonwealth of Independent States, and the United States. This book is based on interviews with sixty-three legacy migrants and thirty secondary informants. In Part I, I provide insights on how diaspora subjectivities formed through the sociohistorical and political specificities of each diaspora and were further shaped by diasporans’ efforts to embody inherited images of Korea/n even as they negotiated belonging in their countries of diaspora. Part II is devoted to four intangible “borders”—social spaces, citizenship, Korean language, and family—and how each border shapes the affective conditions of legacy migrants. It goes on to demonstrate how their evolving psychoemotional responses, which I call “affective topography,” contribute to the (re)making of Korean peoplehood. Diaspora Koreans who migrate to Korea must navigate belongings that are situated in the nexus between ethnic nationalism and neoliberalism and mediated by how their affective topographies shift as expectations meet reality. Through this process, they form different degrees of “affective investment,” which, in turn, contributes to a Korean peoplehood that is still evolving.

Eden’s East: An ethnography of LG language communities in Seoul, South Korea

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Hadzantonis
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Linguistic Theory ◽  
Social Spaces ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
Lesbian And Gay ◽  
Comparative Framework ◽  
Religious Piety ◽  
Cultural Positioning

Motivated by social inclusion, lesbian and gay communities have long attempted to negotiate languages and connected discourses. Social ascriptions act to oppress these communities, thus grounding Cameron’s (1985) Feminism and Linguistic theory. This practice of language negotiation significantly intensifies in regions where religious piety (Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, Islam) interacts with rigid social structure (Confucianism, Interdependency), mediating social and cultural positioning. Consequently, members of LG communities build linguistic affordances, thus (re)positioning selves so to negotiate ascribed identities and marginalizations. Paradoxically, these communities model discourses and dynamics of larger sociocultural networks, so as to contest marginalizations, thus repositioning self and other. Through a comparative framework, the current study employs ethnography, as well as conversation and discourse analyses, of LG communities, to explore ways in which these communities in Seoul (Seoul) develop and employ adroit language practices to struggle within social spaces, and to contest positivist ascriptions.

Contouring Social Spaces

Homing ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ji-Yeon O. Jo
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
Korean Americans ◽  
Social Spaces ◽  
Korean Society ◽  
Roles And Responsibilities ◽  
South Korean ◽  
The Social ◽  
Korean Chinese

I take up fundamental questions regarding later-generation diaspora Koreans and their migration to South Korea. Who are the later-generation diasporas who embark on migratory journeys to South Korea? Why do they migrate to South Korea? What has influenced their sense of South Korean society and of belonging to “imagined homeland”? I explore the divergent homing trajectories taken by Korean Chinese, CIS Koreans, and Korean Americans, as well as the diverse professions, roles, and responsibilities that they perform in South Korea. I further explore the social spaces that legacy migrants have established in South Korea, looking at how they went about creating those spaces and the nature of their engagement with Koreans and Korean society—specifically, how they determined what sort of social spaces they needed and how the social spaces they produced reflected their affective reality in South Korean society.

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