Experiencing Everyday Otherness: A Study of Southeast Asian Marriage-Migrants in South Korea

Abstract

Summary This study explores the everyday Otherness experienced by Southeast Asian marriage-migrant women in South Korea. South Korea is increasingly ethnically diverse due to the dramatic rise in international marriages between foreign women and Korean men, most of which are facilitated by marriage brokers. Yet little research has been conducted on marriage-migrants’ experiences of communicating with local Koreans. Drawing on data collected through in-depth interviews with five participants from Cambodia and Vietnam, this study focuses on specific factors that cause conflicts between these women and local Koreans in various social contexts, including the household, workplaces, and wider communities, and how the women respond to such conflicts and manage challenging interactions. The participants’ narratives demonstrate the tensions and conflicts they encounter, which can be divided into three categories: the imposition of Korean ways of living, negative stereotyping, and language use. The women describe being perceived as deviating from Korean society’s cultural and linguistic norms and facing pressure to conform to these norms, which sometimes conflict with their own sense of identity. In addition, they experience marginalization through Othering and negative stereotyping in their interactions with Koreans and struggle to develop a sense of belonging to the host society. The results of this study provide implications for second language programs designed for marriage-migrants, which have the potential to enable marriage-migrants to achieve sustainable development in their second language learning and to support their development of multilingual and multicultural identities.