AltaMira Press
Pages: 272
•
Trim: 6 x 9
978-0-7591-2035-8 • Hardback • December 2011 • $91.00 • (£70.00)
978-0-7591-2037-2 • eBook • October 2011 • $86.50 • (£67.00)
Choong Soon Kim is president of the Cyber University of Korea and professor emeritus of the University of Tennessee. He is the author of a number of books, including One Anthropologist, Two Worlds: Three Decades of Reflexive Fieldwork in North America and Asia (2002).
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1. Koreans as Descendants of Immigrants
Chapter 2. The Epic Journey of an Archaeologist in Search of His Ancestress
Chapter 3. The Emergence of the "Pure-blood" Myth and Human Rights
Chapter 4. Tales of Foreign Brides Who Married via International Marriage Brokers
Chapter 5. Stories of Foreign Brides Who Were Married by a Religious Organization
Chapter 6. Foreign Brides Who Fell in Love with Korean Men
Chapter 7. The Characteristics of Korean Multiculturalism and Its Outlook for the Future
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Kim’s latest book is a ground-breaking masterpiece. His argument that Korea has become a multicultured society despite the myth of its homogeneity is fascinating, informative, and persuasive. It is valuable reading for anyone interested in ethnic studies and must reading for students of contemporary Korean culture.
— Kendall Blanchard, Georgia Southwestern State University
Anthropologist Kim (president, Cyber Univ. of Korea; emer., Univ. of Tennessee) explores the experiences of non-Korean women married to male citizens of the Republic of Korea and places them in the context of historical traditions that, in contrast to the current dominant narrative of a single ethnographic nation, emphasize Korea's openness to the world. Kim tellingly observes that discussions of multiculturalism in South Korea focus on multicultural families rather than on broader social issues. The case histories of the foreign brides, which are drawn from the author's participation in the e-Learning Campaign for Multicultural Families conducted by the Cyber University of Korea, introduce interesting patterns of intra-Asian migration. Rural men who have encountered difficulties in obtaining wives in an era of rapid urbanization have relied on marriage brokers to recruit Chinese, Vietnamese, and other Asian women eager to make economically advantageous marriages. Foreign brides now number well over 100,000. Summing Up: Recommended. — CHOICE
Choong Soon Kim's work is a timely study on the development of a multicultural society in South Korea. . . .Kim's book as an ethnohistorical, ethnographic work greatly contributes to the existing work on multiculturalism in Korea. — The Historian
Choong Soon Kim’s Voices of Foreign Brides is as much a thought-provoking study of multiculturalism (in a country not known for its attention to cultural differences) as it is a rich, nuanced, and engrossing chronicle of the many Chinese and Southeast Asian women recruited by the Korean government to marry rural Korean men. With compelling ethnographic descriptions, Kim describes the dilemma of both the rural bachelors left behind as women flock to cities and the plight of these new immigrants. In the process, Kim sheds new light on the conflict between Korea’s imagined homogeneity and its real cultural and ethnic diversity.— Roy Richard Grinker, The George Washington University
Kim’s is the seasoned voice of mature observer of Korea. Through the voices of ‘foreign brides,’ Kim interrogates Korea’s foundational myths. This intellectual odyssey invites us to observe a transforming South Korea through new eyes. — Nancy Abelmann, Harry E. Preble Professor of Anthropology, Asian American Studies, East Asian Languages and Cultures