The (Mis)Understanding of Race and Racism in Multicultural Korea

Abstract

This paper examines the (mis)understanding of race and racism in contemporary South Korea where ‘multiculturalism’ has recently emerged as a discursive space within which migrant incorporation and racial/cultural diversity are discussed. What is interesting in the Korean application of multiculturalism is that the term ‘multicultural (/multiculture)’ is dominantly used as a qualifier for certain people. This article explains how this employment of multiculturalism works as a euphemism for race, predicated on the discomfort with race and reciprocated with the persistent silence of racism. To this end, this article draws on the analysis of in-depth interviews conducted with various opinion makers who actively respond to the multiculturalisation of Korea. The empirical evidence reveals what Mills identifies as an ‘epistemology of ignorance’ regarding race, shared by both mainstream multicultural discourses and anti-multiculturalists. This paper argues that mainstream multicultural discourses as an incarnation of good nationalism keeps racialising migrants to effectively manage their in-/exclusion.