‘Strangers amongst us'

Abstract

The making of cosmopolitan cities necessitates competence to engage and live with difference and diversity. More often than not, diversity is treated as a challenge to social integration especially in urban areas with a short history of and less exposure to diversification. However, such overemphasis on diversity as a challenge overlooks a more nuanced approach to urban diversity that is lived and experienced by migrants and the local population. This paper explores ‘diversity on the ground’ transpiring in ‘mundane’ encounters between Filipino migrants and South Koreans in Seoul. I analyze how ‘taken-for-granted’ migrant-local encounters and the social processes surrounding these intercultural interactions are crucial in facilitating or impeding civility and mutual recognition that are crucial in the cosmopolitanization of a global city. Following Erving Goffman’s theory of social interaction, I interrogate migrants’ and local citizens’ behavior towards each other in public spaces following a social script of ‘getting along’ despite the (in)visibility of differences and otherness. Based on interviews with migrants and Koreans and spatial ethnography of Catholic migrant spaces, I identify two types of encounters: purposeful encounters between migrants and Korean (non)Catholics in given contexts of interactions performing specific interaction rituals, and accidental encounters between Korean public and Filipino migrants when the latter perform both mundane activities and ‘strange’ sociocultural and religious activities in the sacred and public spaces. This paper concludes with some thoughts into how intercultural encounters within religious spaces contribute to the shaping of urban diversity and making of a cosmopolitan city.