Contouring Social Spaces
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.