Collective Memory as a Justification Mechanism: Employers Perceptions for Migrant Workers in South Korea

• In Event: 4151 - International Migration Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 min): Table 15: Global Migration II

Abstract

Sociological research on labor migration has primarily focused on the experiences of migrant workers. Some research on employers hiring migrant workers has explained them as capitalists who engage in maximizing profits or having a racialized understanding of the employees. This paper makes a contribution by adding another source of employers’ perception that provides a cultural repertoire for references and justification for understanding migrant workers: collective memory. I find that at the center of these employers’ perceptions, two strands of a collective memory provide references from which expectations for suitable working conditions and work ethics are derived. First, the shared memory of national labor emigration is selected as a justificatory grounds for reluctance to provide equal wages and benefits for migrant workers. Secondly, the memory of “hard work” during the rapid industrialization era creates an ideal form of an industrial worker, which can only be expected and performed from the East and Southeast Asian temporary migrant workers they hire. Based on these perceptions, employers prefer recruiting recent-arrives to the country and use the national origins of workers as criteria for constructing a stable labor pool. This calls for a greater understanding of cultural mechanisms that shape dynamics between migrant workers and native-born employers.

Author

• Dasom Lee, University of California San Diego