DOCSLIB.ORG

How North Korean Migrants Learn to Interact, Manage

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
How North Korean Migrants Learn to Interact, Manage The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School LEARNING THROUGH WORK: HOW NORTH KOREAN MIGRANTS LEARN TO INTERACT, MANAGE EMOTIONS, AND DEVELOP COPING STRATEGIES AT SOCIAL ENTERPRISES IN SOUTH KOREA A Dissertation in Lifelong Learning and Adult Education by Jinhee Choi Ó 2020 Jinhee Choi Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2020 ii ii The dissertation of Jinhee Choi was reviewed and approved by the following: Esther S. Prins Professor of Lifelong Learning and Adult Education Dissertation Advisor Chair of Committee Craig A. Campbell Assistant Teaching Professor of Lifelong Learning and Adult Education Allison Henward Associate Professor of Curriculum and Instruction David M. Post Professor of Educational Theory and Policy Hyung Joon Yoon Assistant Professor of Workforce Education Susan Land Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Learning and Performance Systems iii ABSTRACT Renowned as a theater of the Cold War, the Korean peninsula has been divided between North Korea and South Korea over the past 70 years, with each country developing its distinctive political, economic, and cultural systems. Over the past 30 years, approximately, 33,000 North Koreans have entered South Korea, where they experience part-time and precarious employment, as well as unemployment. Through collaboration with corporations and non-governmental organizations, the South Korea government seeks to support North Korean migrants’ employment by providing training programs and job opportunities, particularly through social enterprises. These work sites are intended to be a primary avenue for North Koreans’ sociocultural and economic integration into South Korean society, yet there is no empirical literature on how North Korean migrants learn in their everyday workplaces. In particular, policy makers, scholars, and practitioners have neglected to examine how North Korean migrants’ unique sociocultural backgrounds and characteristics create opportunities and challenges in their workplace interactions. Few studies have demonstrated what fosters or hinders the learning of North Korean migrants in customer service jobs in general, and at social enterprise settings in particular, places where employees’ ethnic identities are on display. This dissertation seeks to interpret and understand (a) how North Korean migrants learn to interact with co-workers, customers, and supervisors at social enterprises in South Korea, (b) how they develop ways to manage their feelings to fulfill the emotional requirements of the service jobs, and (c) how social enterprise organizational settings shape their coping strategies. I used ethnographic methods (participant-observation, informal and semi-structured interviews, and field notes) to conduct research with 25 participants over nine months at social enterprise restaurants and cafés in a major South Korean city. The study’s theoretical framework integrates a social constructivist approach to learning (Illeris, 2004) and emotional labor (Hochschild, 1979, iv 2012) to explore what and how participants learn in their workplace environment. The narrative and discourse analyses of the multiple sources revealed several key findings. First, the participants’ experiences of strong tensions in communication and interpersonal relationships were rooted in linguistic and cultural gaps between North and South Korea. To integrate themselves into demanding business environments, participants drew on the cultural practices (Gutiérrez & Rogoff, 2003; Swidler, 2001) of memorization and nunchi (an ability to read implicit social cues and understand intentions) to avoid anxiety, confusion, and humiliation. Second, some South Korean customers labeled and treated participants as their enemies and as uneducated, sexual objects from a lower social class. These perceptions evoked ambivalent responses toward North Korean migrants: hostility and contempt, but also sympathy for their plight. Third, at the group level participants developed interactive coping strategies, appraising (accessing and evaluating external challenges), storytelling, and collective criticism, to access information, release intense feelings, and correct each other’s attitudes, respectively. At the individual level, participants managed the emotional requirements of the workplace by embracing, avoiding, and/or resisting social bias toward North Koreans. Finally, social enterprises’ organizational identities, artifacts, and environments induced participants’ sense of exclusion and otherness, which served to undermine the championed social mission of integration. This study contests the deficit discourse on North Korean migrants as incompetent workers and social burdens. It underscores how the contradictions and complications encountered by these migrants catalyzed their self-directed learning and efforts to fit in. This research calls for careful integration of adjustment supports and training programs for social enterprises that hire the socially marginalized populations within sociocultural and historical contexts. The findings can be used to foster dialogue among inter-sector stakeholders regarding the complexities of social enterprises and to improve opportunities, adult education, and professional development to support North Koreans’ workforce integration. v Table of Contents LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................................................................................... xi LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................................... xii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .................................................................................................... xiii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ....................................................................................................... xiv Chapter 1 Introduction ................................................................................................................ 1 Problem Statement ..................................................................................................................... 4 Purpose and Significance of the Study ..................................................................................... 6 Research Questions .................................................................................................................... 7 Background: North Korean Migrants’ Employment, Cultural, and Policy Context .......... 8 Theoretical Framework ........................................................................................................... 10 Overview of Methodology ....................................................................................................... 12 Research settings and sites. ................................................................................................. 12 Data collection and analysis. ............................................................................................... 12 Summary ................................................................................................................................... 13 Overview of the dissertation ................................................................................................... 13 Chapter 2 ...................................................................................................................................... 16 Literature Review ........................................................................................................................ 16 Context of International Migrant Workforce Integration ................................................... 16 Studies on North Korean Migrants to South Korea ............................................................. 17 North Korean Migrants’ Workforce Training and Learning ............................................. 22 Skill acquisition. ................................................................................................................... 22 vi Participation. ........................................................................................................................ 23 Work experience. ................................................................................................................. 24 Post-unification East Germany. .......................................................................................... 26 Summary ................................................................................................................................... 28 Theoretical Frameworks ......................................................................................................... 29 Adult learning. ..................................................................................................................... 29 Illeris’ learning framework. ................................................................................................ 29 Two fundamental processes. ............................................................................................... 30 Three dimensions. ................................................................................................................ 31 Barriers to learning. ............................................................................................................. 31 Framing workplace learning ................................................................................................... 33 Product. ................................................................................................................................
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Abl25thesispdf.Pdf (2.788Mb)
    THE HOPE AND CRISIS OF PRAGMATIC TRANSITION: POLITICS, LAW, ANTHROPOLOGY AND SOUTH KOREA A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School Of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Amy Beth Levine May 2011 © 2011 Amy Beth Levine THE HOPE AND CRISIS OF PRAGMATIC TRANSITION: POLITICS, LAW, ANTHROPOLOGY AND SOUTH KOREA Amy Beth Levine, Ph.D. Cornell University 2011 This dissertation demonstrates how the urgent condition of crisis is routine for many non-governmental (NGO) and non-profit organization (NPO) workers, activists, lawyers, social movement analysts, social designers and ethnographers. The study makes a contribution to the increasing number of anthropological, legal, pedagogical, philosophical, political, and socio-legal studies concerned with pragmatism and hope by approaching crisis as ground, hope as figure, and pragmatism as transition or placeholder between them. In effect this work makes evident the agency of the past in the apprehension of the present, whose complexity is conceptualized as scale, in order to hopefully refigure ethnography’s future role as an anticipatory process rather than a pragmatic response to crisis or an always already emergent world. This dissertation is based on over two years of fieldwork inside NGOs, NPOs, and think tanks, hundreds of conversations, over a hundred interviews, and archival research in Seoul, South Korea. The transformation of the “386 generation” and Roh Moo Hyun’s presidency from 2003 to 2008 serve as both the contextual background and central figures of the study. This work replicates the historical, contemporary, and anticipated transitions of my informants by responding to the problem of agency inherent in crisis with a sense of scale and a rescaling of agency.
    [Show full text]
  • English on Korean Television
    World Englishes, Vol. 33, No. 1, pp. 33–49, 2014. 0883-2919 English on Korean television JAMIE SHINHEE LEE∗ ABSTRACT: This study discusses verbal humor in entertainment media and examines polarizing representations of English on Korean television. English is a source of stress as well as a medium of humor. Language anxiety about English speaking skills is frequently focalized and viewed as a personal challenge by Korean celebrities, but they often transform their linguistic ‘complex’ into humorous talk. This study argues that using English, possibly the most revered and yet the most feared language in Korea, in humor is sociolinguistically significant, embodying attitudinal, emotional, and experiential ambivalence about English in globalization-minded contemporary Korea. The findings of the study suggest that generation- conscious ageism regarding English proficiency typically characterizes senior citizens as sociolinguistically underperforming, which sometimes forces them to be in a vulnerable position both in familial and social contexts. Increasing use of English on Korean television divides bilingual viewers and monolingual viewers and whether one can be entertained and humored by television programs may become another English- related stratification variable in Korea. INTRODUCTION English is used increasingly in verbal humor in Korean entertainment media, and a common theme is English speaking skills and language anxiety. Using English in Korean humor is sociolinguistically consequential considering that the English language signifies attitudinal and emotional duality—coexistence of devotion or even fanaticism and odium—for many Koreans. English is possibly the most revered and at the same time the most feared foreign language in contemporary Korea (Lee 2007), and ambivalent stances exist both individually and collectively as a society (Lee 2012).
    [Show full text]
  • B. 1973 in Seoul, South Korea; Lives and Works in Baltimore, New York, and Seoul
    Mina Cheon CV 2021 Mina Cheon (천민정) (b. 1973 in Seoul, South Korea; lives and works in Baltimore, New York, and Seoul) Mina Cheon is a new media artist, sCholar, eduCator, and activist best known for her “Polipop” paintings inspired by Pop art and Social Realism. Cheon’s practice draws inspiration from the partition of the Korean peninsula, exemplified by her parallel body of work created under her North Korean alter ego, Kim Il Soon, in which she enlists a range of mediums inCluding painting, sCulpture, video, installation, and performanCe to deConstruCt and reConCile the fraught history and ongoing coexistence between North and South Korea. She has exhibited internationally, including at the Busan Biennale (2018); Baltimore Museum of Art (2018); American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, Washington, DC (2014); Sungkok Art Museum, Seoul (2012); and Insa Art SpaCe, Seoul (2005). Her work is in the colleCtions of the Baltimore Museum of Art; Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton; and Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul. Currently, she is working on her participation for the inaugural Asia SoCiety Triennial 2020-2021 titled, “We Do Not Dream Alone.” Her digital interactive art piece, EatChocopieTogether.com for global peaCe, was launChed on August 15, 2020 and will remain active for virtual participation as a lead up to the physical exhibition of Eat Chocopie Together at the end of the Triennial. Mina Cheon is the author of Shamanism + CyberspaCe (Atropos Press, Dresden and New York, 2009), contributor for ArtUS, Wolgan Misool, New York Arts Magazine, Artist Organized Art, and served on the Board of Directors of the New Media CauCus of the College Art AssoCiation, as well as an AssoCiate Editor of the peer review aCademiC journal Media-N.
    [Show full text]
  • Borrowing’ of English: How the Korean Lexicon Will Be Forever Evolving
    The Internet Journal of Language, Culture and Society ISSN 1327-774X The ‘Borrowing’ of English: How the Korean Lexicon Will Be Forever Evolving Kent McClintock University of Tasmania, Australia Abstract Korean society and language are under a continual alteration in regards to their social, cultural, eco- nomic and political life. With the ever increasing emphasis placed on the population to become com- municatively competent in a foreign language, predominantly English, by the Ministry of Education (MOE) and the domestic conglomerates, the phenomenon of borrowing English lexicon will surely ad- vance unabated. As well, accompanying the influences of the MOE and the conglomerates is the fact that South Koreans themselves are becoming much more globalised and outward looking than they have ever been in their entire history as a nation with increased travel and more opportunities to en- counter foreigners within the nation. Having come into contact with native English speakers has fos- tered the process of borrowing lexicon and influencing the internal linguistic development. Introduction Throughout history, when individuals from differing tribes (nations) came into contact with one another, the basis of communication employed was in all likelihood cumbersome and fraught with miscommu- nication. In not having the ability to comprehend or produce each others’ vernacular, individuals either had to learn the native tongue of their interlocutors or had to instruct their interlocutors in their own native tongue. Over time, due to these contacts
    [Show full text]
  • Anna Enarsson New Blends in the English Language Engelska C
    Estetisk-filosofiska fakulteten Anna Enarsson New Blends in the English Language Engelska C-uppsats Termin: Höstterminen 2006 Handledare: Michael Wherrity Karlstads universitet 651 88 Karlstad Tfn 054-700 10 00 Fax 054-700 14 60 [email protected] www.kau.se Titel: New Blends in the English Language Författare: Anna Enarsson Antal sidor: 29 Abstract: The aim of this essay was to identify new blends that have entered the English language. Firstly six different word-formation processes, including blending, was described. Those were compounding, clipping, backformation, acronyming, derivation and blending. The investigation was done by using a list of blends from Wikipedia. The words were looked up in the Longman dictionary of 2005 and in a dictionary online. A google search and a corpus investigation were also conducted. The investigation suggested that most of the blends were made by clipping and the second most common form was clipping and overlapping. Blends with only overlapping was unusual and accounted for only three percent. The investigation also suggested that the most common way to create blends by clipping was to use the first part of the first word and the last part of the second word. The blends were not only investigated according to their structure but also according to the domains they occur in. This part of the investigation suggested that the blends were most frequent in the technical domain, but also in the domain of society. Table of contents 1. Introduction and aims..........................................................................................................1
    [Show full text]
  • The Art of Konglish
    Feature The art of Konglish The art of Konglish Niamh Mulholland, winner of our young writers’ competition, explains why Konglish – a fusion of English and Korean – is more than the sum of its parts. oanwords in languages are by no means a recent phenomenon. The English language was in fact one of the biggest culprits for such lexical adaptations, with many words being ‘borrowed’ from French, Spanish, LItalian and German (see Philip Durkin’s account of English borrowing on pages 10–13 of this issue!). Whilst English continues to borrow words from other languages, the tables have turned, as it seems King Sejon, creator of the Korean alphabet English has become the ‘lender’ of words especially in Asia. The rapid development of technology has accurately into hangeul (한글) and as this became meant related vocabulary is adopted internationally a common practice the loanwords became more due to the strong recognition of certain concepts than loanwords and the words found themselves in the origin country, in this case the US or the integrated into the Korean lexicon with a meaning UK. The Korean language is the ideal host for often completely different to that of the word these words given the flexibility of the Korean from which it originated. One example of this is alphabet, hangeul (한글) – an alphabet dating the Korean word ‘shapeu’ (샤프/sa-ya-p-eu) which back to the Joseon Dynasty, 1443. It was created reads eerily similar to the English word ‘sharp’ by King Sejon with the purpose of educating the whilst in fact ‘shapeu’ (샤프) refers specifically to a common people as many were illiterate due to mechanical pencil.
    [Show full text]
  • Attitudes Towards English Loanwords and Their Use in South Korea
    Open Linguistics 2018; 4: 184–198 Research Article Sofia Rüdiger* Mixed Feelings: Attitudes towards English loanwords and their use in South Korea https://doi.org/10.1515/opli-2018-0010 Received October 20, 2017; accepted March 2, 2018 Abstract: This questionnaire study investigates South Korean students’ attitudes towards English loanwords and their use. Even though English enjoys high prestige in Korean society and is considered a requirement for personal and professional advancement, usage of English loanwords is evaluated predominantly negatively or with mixed feelings. For loanwords that semantically deviate from standard English meanings and thus demonstrate Korean identity (i.e., Konglish loanwords), the evaluations turn even more to the negative. Nevertheless, participants also posit positive aspects of general English and Konglish loanword use and, additionally, put forward a variety of perceived reasons for using English words. This study shows that general positive attitudes related to a language can be reversed or at least modified when it comes to the combination of the prestigious language with the native language. Keywords: loanwords; language attitudes; English in Korea; Konglish; lexical borrowing 1 Introduction Loanwords from English are a common phenomenon in most of the world’s languages. Besides cataloguing and analyzing their functions, types, and integration processes, it is also indispensable to investigate how loanwords are perceived by speakers and which attitudes are linked with them and their use. The study at hand provides insights into the perceptions and attitudes towards English loanwords in the South Korean (henceforth Korean) context. English loanwords are extremely pervasive in the Korean language (Lee 1996, Lawrence 2010) and thus part of every Korean’s linguistic repertoire.
    [Show full text]
  • A Study of English Loanwords in Korean 1999학년도
    A Study of English Loanw ords in Korean 1999학년도 西 江 大 學 校 敎 育 大 學 院 英 語 敎 育 專 攻 千 銀 淑 A Study of English Loanw ords in Korean Cheon Eun - Sook T hesis Presented T o the Departm ent of English E ducation , T he Gr aduate School of Education , Sog ang Univer sity P artial F ulfillm ent of Requirem ent for Degree of M aster of E ducation 1999 A Study of English Loanw ords in Korean 指導敎授 이 성 범 이 論文을 敎育學 碩士學位 論文으로 提出함 2000년 1월 西江大學校 敎育大學院 英語 교육 專攻 천 은 숙 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT S I w ould like to appreciate the kindness and efforts of many people who helped me to complete my thesis. Fir st of all, I w ould like to give my deepest thanks to Professor Lee Seong Bum who read my draft and kindly corrected my mistakes for the improvement of my thesis. He gave constant advice and encouragement to me throughout this thesis. Without his sincere help, I would not have completed this thesis . I w ould like to give my thanks to all the other professors in English department and my colleagues in Yool- gok High School who helped me during my graduate school day s. I w ould like to give my thanks to my parents- in - law . T hey alway s encouraged me to continue my study and they took care of my children with their whole heart during my study . Lastly, I give special thanks to my beloved husband, Park Seong Bae.
    [Show full text]
  • Feature Scene III Liquid Grammar, Liquid Style: on the East-Asian Way
    Feature Scene III Liquid Grammar, Liquid Style: On the East-Asian Way of Using English or the Phenomenon of “Linguistic Air-Guitars” “Thinking Logically to Feel Confident About Reading English” (from a Chinese Time-Newsweek subscription campaign) 1. At Full Love With Vivian The Western visitor of East Asia marvels at English expressions that he encounters in advertisements, in magazines, on T-Shirts, and else- where that seem to come “out of another world”. Single words and short English sentences, rarely longer than five words, suggest some- thing like the invention of a new language. In Japan and in Korea this phenomenon has been thriving for decades. In China it is more recent but it is developing along the same lines. The use of English in East Asia is linked to a certain part of East- Asian social history. “Japano-English” for example, is neither “real” English nor Japanese but symbolizes, within the domain of linguistics, the co-existence of two cultural spheres. In Japan, after the mid-1880s, an earlier uncritical and unsystematic acceptance of things Western gradually gave way to the view that Japanese and Western cultures can exist side-by-side. From then on the question was: how can East Asia incorporate the West without being culturally overwhelmed by it? In the domain of language, Japano-English brought forward schemes of cultural coexistence of utmost sophistication. Wasei eigo (made in Japan English) is a well-known phenomenon. Most of the time, it concerns the invention – or rather re-invention – of words like arubaito (part-time work from the German Arbeit) or mansion (a modern apartment block), attributing new meanings to foreign words.
    [Show full text]
  • Understanding Translanguaging and Identity Among Korean Bilingual Adults Nancy Ryoo University of San Francisco, [email protected]
    The University of San Francisco USF Scholarship: a digital repository @ Gleeson Library | Geschke Center Doctoral Dissertations Theses, Dissertations, Capstones and Projects Winter 2017 Understanding Translanguaging and Identity among Korean Bilingual Adults Nancy Ryoo University of San Francisco, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.usfca.edu/diss Part of the Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons, and the Linguistics Commons Recommended Citation Ryoo, Nancy, "Understanding Translanguaging and Identity among Korean Bilingual Adults" (2017). Doctoral Dissertations. 412. https://repository.usfca.edu/diss/412 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, Capstones and Projects at USF Scholarship: a digital repository @ Gleeson Library | Geschke Center. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of USF Scholarship: a digital repository @ Gleeson Library | Geschke Center. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The University of San Francisco UNDERSTANDING TRANSLANGUAGING AND IDENTITY AMONG KOREAN BILINGUAL ADULTS A Dissertation Presented to The Faculty of the School of Education Department of International and Multicultural Education In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements of the Degree Doctor of Education By Nancy Eunjoo Ryoo San Francisco, CA December 2017 THE UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO DISSERTATION ABSTRACT “Understanding Translanguaging and Identity among Korean Bilingual Adults” This qualitative study, conducted at a Northern California university, explored how six Korean bilingual adults expressed their unique identities while utilizing both Korean and English in their daily and academic lives. The six study participants shared their journeys as bilingual adults who migrated to the United States from South Korea to attend graduate school.
    [Show full text]
  • Korean Or Konglish Pop Music? Jain Willis This Article Discusses the Use of English in Korean Popular Music
    Putting the K in K-Pop: Korean or Konglish Pop Music? Jain Willis This article discusses the use of English in Korean popular music. First the author explored the motivations behind Korean music groups’ use of English. Next the author looked semantically at Korean band names that incorporate English words and Korean songs that incorporate English lyrics. She discussed what makes this new practice of incorporating English suc- cessful or unsuccessful in Korean pop music. The article concludes that the use of English in Korean pop music is becoming increasingly popular, and that this may be a bad thing if extra care isn’t taken to ensure accuracy.w Korean popular music (known as K-Pop) is sweeping the globe. Korean pop artist PSY’s “Gangnam Style” is currently the only video on YouTube to receive over one billion views. From Asia to Europe to South America, and yes, even to the United States, K-Pop has found millions of fans worldwide. K-Pop groups—like the boy bands of the nineties—dance and sing their way to fame with the help of sometimes carefully constructed good looks, outrageous clothing, catchy songs, and impressive choreography. Some companies start training their soon-to-be K-Pop stars, known as idols, as early as twelve years old. Idols are prepped for fame through years of lessons on all they need to become a hit, including learning to speak English. But native English speakers may not be able to understand the English in K-Pop songs, as it frequently doesn’t make any sense.
    [Show full text]
  • Korean Jogiyuhaksaeng's Early Study Abroad and Bilingual Development
    Korean jogiyuhaksaeng’s early study abroad and bilingual development in Australia Bong Jeong Lee Doctor of Philosophy 2014 University of Technology, Sydney Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences CERTIFICATE OF AUTHORSHIP/ORIGINALITY I certify that the work in this thesis has not previously been submitted for a degree nor has it been submitted as part of requirements for a degree except as fully acknowledged within the text. I also certify that the thesis has been written by me. Any help that I have received in my research work and the preparation of the thesis itself has been acknowledged. In addition, I certify that all information sources and literature used are indicated in the thesis. Signature of candidate _____________________ i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to the many people who helped make this thesis possible. First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest appreciation to my research participants who were willing to share with me their valuable narratives about lived experiences. Without their rich, vivid and insightful stories, this thesis simply would not have been possible. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Alastair Pennycook, for his constant academic and intellectual support and patience throughout my PhD candidature. I cannot imagine being able to complete this thesis without his insightful and thorough feedback on my writing, along with his advice and encouragement to conduct in-depth analysis and his inspiring scholarship. I am also grateful to my co- supervisor, Roslyn Appleby for her valuable comments and encouragement throughout the process of thesis writing.
    [Show full text]