Internal Orientalism and multicultural acts: the challenges of multicultural education in Korea

Abstract

This essay examines how the projects seeking to promote damunhwa, literally translated as multi-culture, in South Korea inadvertently reinforce cultural stereotypes and reproduce cultural hierarchies. Unlike many studies that focus on discrimination against racial or ethnic minority populations, this paper argues that the seemingly benevolent acts of the majority towards ethnic minority populations in Korea produce unintended consequences. Based on descriptive content analysis of Internet news stories, this paper demonstrates the manner in which the dominant Korean society develops an oppositional binary between citizen and foreigner. Building on Edward Said’s work, this paper introduces the concept of internal Orientalism that highlights the teleology of cultural distinction by rendering minority populations with weak subjectivity and stigmatizing them as vulnerable populations through a multitude of policies and programmes designed to help them. Doing so ironically and simultaneously constructs opportunities for the Korean society to create a benevolent society, thereby crystallizing an interdependent binary between the dominant and minority populations.