Reconstructing Korean Reunification Using Multiculturalism and Diaspora Perspectives : A Preliminary Study

Abstract

South Korean society has constructed the concept of national reunification based on the justifiable grounds of emphasizing homogeneous nationalism and overcoming the division to complete the national destiny of reunification. However, since the 2000s as the country has gradually become multicultural; the international community has urged South Korea to change the people’s social awareness of homogeneity. South Koreans share a ‘Diaspora’ formed during the history of the Korean peninsula and Northeast Asia. The concept of ‘Korean reunification’ is not just an ideology to overcome the national division but is a requirement to understand the perspectives of multiculturalism and diaspora. This study suggests a number of theoretical points on how to reconstruct the concept of national reunification contingent upon political, social and environmental changes. Now is the time to review the concept of ‘Korean reunification’ in terms of possible acceptance of goals per the Korean Diaspora, (which developed via Korea’s recent history), while international society works to accept universal human values. This study will discuss the concept of Korean reunification from a cultural perspective rather than a political and military point of view; the latter approach focuses on overcoming the ideological conflicts in the reunification of South and North Korea.