Remaking the Myth of the ‘Trade Warrior’: Searching for South Korean Masculinity in the Philippines

Abstract

This study explores South Korean middle-aged businessmen, mainly in their 50s and 60s, who migrated to the Philippines to boost their socio-economic status and eventually recuperate their masculine identities. By examining how the Korean men’s assumption about where and how they can redeem their masculine identity was made, this research extends the notion of transnational business masculinity in three ways. First, it demonstrates the emergence of transnational business masculinity does not simply denote the demise of older form of business masculinity, and second, the ascendancy of certain form of business masculinity is not given but can be shaped by one of the primary actors, that is, the state. Lastly, the case of Korean middle-aged businessmen in the Philippines unravels the contemporary business masculinity prompts actual transnational migration as it relates to men’s self-positionality in geopolitical global order.