Koreanizing Marriage Migrant Women: A Critical Review of Damunhwa Gobuyeoljeon

Abstract

During the first decade of the 21st century, the increase of interethnic marriages between Korean men and Southeast Asian women was a sensational phenomenon in Korea, where there was a strong sentiment of ethnic nationalism. Instantly, these so-called “multicultural families” — damunhwa gajok in Korean — have represented the multiculturalism of Korea, and they received nationwide attention. Recently, the pre-existing images of marriage migrant women have changed into more complex images on television. The documentary series on Korea’s Education Broadcasting System (EBS), titled Damunhwa Gobuyeoljeon, illustrate those shifting images. The paper critically examines this television documentary series following the principal concepts of discursive psychology. As a result, the program’s demographic features show that the program has reinforced the representation of multicultural families in terms of gender, class, and ethnicity. Shifting representations of marriage migrant women in each episode reflect the ways in which the show creates, negotiates, and represents an idealistic standard of the foreign daughter-in-law. The paper argues that hyo (filial piety) ideology has predominantly influenced the ways that the program interprets participants’ characteristics and behaviors throughout the episodes.