Sohoon Yi | Korea University, Republic of Korea (original) (raw)

Papers by Sohoon Yi

Routledge eBooks, Mar 28, 2023

Rutgers University Press eBooks, Dec 31, 2022

Redefining Multicultural Families in South Korea

The Citizen in the 21st Century, 2013

This chapter explores the relationship between sovereignty, exclusion/exception and membership in... more This chapter explores the relationship between sovereignty, exclusion/exception and membership in South Korea and the ways in which this affects migrants’ membership. Specifically, the paper pays attention to the notion of the national interest (gukik), and its role as foundational rhetoric for membership and (economic) development. South Korea serves as a useful case study for its socio- temporal particularities, particularly political and economic arrangements arising from its history of being a developmental state and, subsequently, (neo)liberal democratic state, post-Asian Financial Crisis. Consequently, I postulate that certain forms of discrimination are tolerated, if not legitimised, according to particularised democracy and membership discourse. The first line of argument uses Beng Huat Chua’s account of Asian Values and communitarian ideology, with an emphasis on ‘Asian’ realisation of equality. Instead of economic, social, civil and political equality (as defined in many variations of communism or liberalism), many Asian states have constructed a notion of a national interest, which is equated with the overall well-being of an imagined community. The second line of argument draws from Jesook Song’s description of neoliberal welfare society in South Korea, which is built on exclusionary membership discourse. The theoretical arguments are supported by two legal case studies pertaining to two categories of migration schemes, examining two different types of restrictions and exclusions the legal mechanisms codify; and the rationale for such discriminatory measures. The first case study draws from a constitutional court case on the right of movement of temporary migrant workers on employment permit visas. The second investigates the laws on naturalisation of marriage migrants. Throughout both, the contradictory dynamics between inclusion and exclusion of migrants, as subsumed in the debates on membership, are explored.

Asian and Pacific Migration Journal

Journal of Korean Women's Studies, 2021

The exploitation of temporary migrant workers (TMWs) employed in Australia has been well document... more The exploitation of temporary migrant workers (TMWs) employed in Australia has been well documented by academics, government enquiries, and the Fair Work Ombudsman [FWO], the Federal government agency responsible for enforcing wage compliance. That exploitation encompasses underpayment of wages through to unpaid wages, and includes exposure to occupational health and safety risks, sexual harassment, overcrowded and unhygienic accommodation facilities, wage deduction scams, and a failure to provide income support to injured TMWs (Doyle and Howes 2015; Australian Senate 2016; FWO 2016; Mares 2016; Underhill and Rimmer 2016; Victorian Government 2016; Berg and Farbenblum 2017; Clibborn 2018; Howe et al. 2018). In horticulture, the rapid increase in TMWs following the expansion of the Working Holiday Visa scheme in 2005, and the expansion in the supply of undocumented workers has combined to produce a workforce which is easily exploited. Rural employment has traditionally been difficult...

International Journal of Comparative Sociology

This article examines how unions build worker power for day laborers in South Korea’s constructio... more This article examines how unions build worker power for day laborers in South Korea’s construction industry in the context of widespread informality. Drawing upon regional case studies of the Korean Construction Workers Union (KCWU), we find that construction day laborers experience poor working conditions and rampant employment violations under multiple layers of subcontracting that enable capital to bypass existing labor laws and regulations. Despite the regulatory challenges of complex subcontracting systems, unions can still exert direct pressure on firms to improve informal working conditions by securing and enforcing creative collective agreements. Key to this process is the development of regionally-specific forms of worker power that target firms located higher up the subcontracting chain to take responsibility for informal working conditions. Although the scope of influence varies depending on the type of worker power that unions cultivate (e.g. structural, associational, a...

European Journal of East Asian Studies

Temporary contract migration represents the predominant form of legal migration policy in Asia. W... more Temporary contract migration represents the predominant form of legal migration policy in Asia. With its rationale of the filling of jobs and provision of income-generating opportunities, it is linked to the migration–development nexus debate. This paper focuses on the impact of migrants’ agency as development actors within a transnational sphere. The mainstream migration–development nexus debate and policy prescriptions imagine diaspora groups as the ideal conduit for grassroots-driven development initiatives. While ‘diaspora group-led’ initiatives assume long-term, if not permanent, migration, temporary migration creates a dynamic that is fundamentally distinct. Temporality of migration, as mandated by bilateral agreements and promoted by global institutions in Asia, shapes migrant agency and migrants’ development aspirations in essentially different ways, but temporary contract migrants are nevertheless constructed as the ‘agents of development’ at the macro level of politics and...

Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 2016

This paper investigates a transient border between the temporary and (potentially) permanent migr... more This paper investigates a transient border between the temporary and (potentially) permanent migration schemes, by reviewing the changes in migration policies relating to Korean-Chinese (Joseonjok) co-ethnic migrants in South Korea in the last 10 years. We pay attention to Working Visit Status and Overseas Korean Status and the fluidity between the two visa streams, to argue that the government utilises the arbitrary notion of ‘skilledness’ as an indicator to distinguish the temporary from the non-temporary migrants. To interrogate how the visa system operates, this paper reviews politics between and within the government, the market and the migrants. Although the government rhetorically uses visa policies as a quality-control mechanism to selectively accept a desirable population, it can only do so by relying on the market to ‘evaluate’ migrants. However, Korean-Chinese migrants are welcomed in the low-skilled employment market to fill labour shortages, and they also contribute to the expanding migration industry as consumers, which stand at odds with the government’s effort to limit ‘unskilled’ migration. The relegation of the state’s responsibility to the market provides an opportunity for migrants to contest the border and negotiate with the state. However, their negotiation comes at the expense of precarisation of their legal status.

International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 2019

This paper examines how unions build worker power for day labourers in South Korea's construction... more This paper examines how unions build worker power for day labourers in South Korea's construction industry to interrogate the relationship between informality, the construction industry and the organized labor. Drawing upon in-depth case studies of three regional branches of the Korean Construction Workers Union (KCWU), we find that each branch cultivates distinct forms of worker power-associational, structural, and symbolic power-to hold capital accountable. Construction day labourers organize despite the regulatory challenges that informalize their employment conditions in the context of widespread legal and illegal outsourcing. We argue that the crux of informality is capital's ability to bypass existing labor laws and regulations through the elaborately multi-tired subcontracting structure. Our case study shows multiple approaches to addressing capital's attempt to elude its responsibility around and through legal loopholes through union power-building strategies, rather than demanding stronger public intervention from the state. Each form of worker power has enabled the KCWU to secure and enforce creative collective agreements that establish some uniform standards regarding job quality and job security, although their scope of influence varies.

Social Politics, 2019

Inspired by theories of marginalized women’s maternal labor, this article contributes to the lite... more Inspired by theories of marginalized women’s maternal labor, this article contributes to the literature on the relationship between borders and parenting in Asia. After marital breakdown, marriage migrants in South Korea can extend their stay if they have South Korean children and can present evidence of mothering to the immigration authorities. This article presents a socio-legal analysis of cross-border mothering through in-depth interviews with migrants and relevant stakeholders. Taking cross-border mothering as a site where state intervention encounters migrant subjectivity, I examine maternal norms and scrutiny imposed by immigration authorities and performative maternal labor of migrant mothers.
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Critical Asian Studies, 2016