Intertwined Histories and Eventful Transnationalism in East Asia : A Case of Overseas Chinese in South Korea

• In Event: 30225 - Changing Patterns of International Migration: Asian Perspectives

Abstract

This paper explores a post-colonial approach for conceptualizing the issue of citizenship in East Asia, based upon the large-scale social transformations that have occurred since the 1990s -- post-socialism in mainland China, - post- authoritarian transformation in Taiwan, and neo-liberalization in South Korea. These large-scale social events all intertwined with one another, and the case of overseas Chinese in South Korea embodies this transnational inter-connection in East Asia. The transnational multiplicity applied to overseas Chinese in South Korea deems Shandong province in China as their ancestral home, South Korea as their place of settlement, and Taiwanese as their membership. It is a very complex trifurcated citizenship, which has been challenged and transformed after the large-scale social events in China, Taiwan and South Korea.

Author

• Jaeyoun Won, Yonsei University