A failed attempt at transnational marriage: Maternal citizenship in a globalizing South Korea

Nancy Abelmann, Hyunhee Kim

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

Abstract

This chapter considers a rural and poor South Korean mother's valiant, and ultimately failed, attempts at marrying her only son, who is disabled, to a Filipina woman through the Unification Church. Understanding that the prospect of this marriage-that of the son of a poor farming family to a Southeast Asian woman-is a very recent prospect in South Korea, one facilitated by both transnational geopolitical developments and local transformations in the late 1990s, we ask what this case can tell us about changing social and cultural formations into the new millennium in South Korea. We consider how it is that family is being imagined anew such that foreign, non-Korean brides are rendered viable marriage partners. We take up this mother's story in the broader social field of transnational marriage in South Korea, and more broadly still in the changing landscape of South Korean discourses of its place in the world.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationCross-Border Marriages
Subtitle of host publicationGender and Mobility in Transnational Asia
PublisherUniversity of Pennsylvania Press
Pages101-123
Number of pages23
ISBN (Print)9780812218916
StatePublished - 2004

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Social Sciences

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