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NOTE TO USERS This reproduction is the best copy available. UMI' "Korea is Korea. How do we react to that? Honestly, 'cos it frustrates us. " The experience of young Canadian migrant workers in Seoul. Nirmala Bains A Thesis in The Department of Sociology and Anthropology Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts (Social and Cultural Anthropology) at Concordia University Montreal, Quebec, Canada September 2009 © Nirmala Bains, 2009 Library and Archives Bibliotheque et 1*1 Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington OttawaON K1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-63127-0 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-63127-0 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par Nnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distribute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non­ support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la these ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privee, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont ete enleves de thesis. cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. •+• Canada Abstract "Korea is Korea. How do we react to that? Honestly, 'cos it frustrates us." The experience of young Canadian migrant workers in Seoul. Nirmala Bains This thesis is about young Canadians who travel to Seoul, South Korea to teach English. The majority of these Canadians flock to Seoul in search of a livelihood and not out of a specific desire to live in South Korea. Through three months of participant observation and semi-structured interviews, I explore how they are racialized as white Westerners in South Korean society and how they respond to this positioning. I show how these Canadians oscillate between notions of privilege and the sincere vulnerabilities they face as transmigrant workers. This study is concerned with how subjects narrate their identities through their transnational movement given that these identities are relational and are never disinterested or value-free. As Canadians they fail to identify as migrant workers and rely on various normative discourses of superiority to symbolically displace their actual marginal status. Drawing on their prevailing, albeit unconscious, liberal values these Canadians rely on their understandings of progress, tolerance and universalism to make sense of South Korean society. Ultimately, most Canadian English teachers criticize and then attempt to civilize South Koreans. The concepts of race, nation and whiteness are central to this study as they provide a means to analyze the racialized narratives of these Canadians. Consequently, the manner in which racism and nationalism are interchangeable is unraveled in this transnational context. 111 A ckn owled gements The production of this thesis has been a collaborative undertaking since its inception. I was fortunate to have a dedicated committee comprised of Vered Amit, Christine Jourdan and Gada Mahrouse. 1 thank my thesis supervisor, Vered Amit, for being readily available to meet at a moment's notice. Vered dedicated countless hours discussing and mentoring me along the way and she also went beyond the call of duty by diligently and patiently copy-editing my 'awkward phrases'. Gada Mahrouse played a pivotal role in the making of this thesis by providing critical conceptual and analytical guidance at key moments. Balraj Gill has been my faithful editor throughout this MA, and I am grateful that she could be depended on under tight time constraints. I would also like to thank Tyler Todd for volunteering his editorial skills. This research project is entirely beholden to Faizal and Sabrina who welcomed me into their lives and loving home for the duration of my fieldwork. I extend gratitude to those who actively engaged in participation observation and lengthy interviews. I was fortunate to be surrounded by vigorously intelligent and reflexive people who were anything but naive to the circumstances they encountered in Seoul, South Korea. Lastly, I want to thank the usual suspects - my family and friends - who have untiringly and unconditionally supported me through each stage of this degree. IV for Peter... v Table of Contents Introduction: A Paid Vacation? p. 1 Part 1: An Academic Understanding p. 6 1.1 Literature Review: Migration, Tourism and Transnationalism p. 7 1.2 Conceptual Framework: the Western subject p. 24 1.3 Methods p. 41 Part 2: Setting the Stage p. 45 2.1 Itaewon p. 46 2.2 I'd rather be in Japan p. 52 2.3 Transience p. 57 2.4 Hagwon p. 63 2.5 Pee in the cup p. 71 2.6 Dual-Positioning: Prestige & Stigma p. 80 Part 3: A Critical Approach p. 90 3.1 Whiteness p. 91 3.2 Migrant Labourer p. 98 3.3 Male Privilege p.107 3.4 Knowing her place p. 113 3.5 Criticize p. 121 3.6 Civilize p. 133 Conclusion: Reinforced Notions of Superiority p. 140 Introduction: A Paid Vacation? You know, it is just luck that I was born an English speaker and that I can even teach here and make all this money. It is ridiculous. It is only because I speak English. —Anna' / consider it a paid vacation. —Randy Point of Entry In 2005 I traveled to South Korea2 to teach English. I was following a well- treaded path of young Canadians, usually recent university graduates, who venture to Asia in search of an opportunity to make money while traveling. While I was there, I came to see myself as a migrant worker since I had moved for work. I also felt that I was relegated to the fringes of South Korean society and was not able to defend my rights as a worker, a commonality among foreign contract workers. I asked many of my fellow teachers from North America if they identified as migrant laborers. Everyone I spoke to denied such identification. They insisted that we were not migrant workers because we had chosen to come to South Korea and were being paid decent salaries. After leaving South Korea, I was left with many questions about this specific movement of Westerners and why it is not perceived as a movement of migrant laborers. I was also intrigued by the way my co-workers, compatriots and other Westerners routinely derided South Koreans and South Korean society. I had lived abroad in foreign countries for extended periods before, yet I had never experienced such frequent, The quotes used throughout this thesis are from people who participated in either participant observation or semi-formal interviews. Throughout this thesis, the participants refer to South Korea by its commonly referred to and abbreviated name Korea. 1 widespread, steady, negative and critical remarks directed towards the host population. I began to contemplate the racialized positioning of Canadians in South Korea. This investigation was inspired by that encounter. I traveled to South Korea in the fall of 2008 to complete three months of fieldwork that investigated how subjects identify with being Canadian while living and working abroad. Specifically, I investigated how age/life course, education, status, citizenship, gender, sexuality, ethnicity and race/nationalism intersect to form meaning for people as they create identifications for themselves through their relocation abroad. Based on these intersections, this research further explored how those subjects were located in South Korea and how their location informed their subjectivities and consequent narratives. Key Problematics This research was motivated by the following question: How does the national identity of Canadians determine their position in South Korea? This question stemmed from the following inquiries: Are Canadians who teach English in South Korea migrant laborers? Do they identify with that label? How does the intersection of tourism inform this type of mobility? I investigated these matters through a critical race perspective whereby race and nation are mutually constituting terms. In the book English and the Discourses of Colonialism, Alastair Pennycook illustrates how teaching English is an effect and continuation of cultural colonialism. This thesis takes that as its starting premise and highlights the ways in which Canadian subjects are created through this enterprise. The aim of this study is to unravel how individuals are placed within the world-system and how their placement depends upon, and at the same time, reinstates the unequal global hierarchies among them. This project was undertaken to illustrate, through 2 an ethnographic portrait, the subtleties and nuances that emerge through this form of subject-making. This thesis shows that these Canadians are migrant workers as they are marginalized and relatively powerless in South Korean society. Yet, despite the vulnerabilities that they face, they manage to empower themselves through the illusion of moral superiority.

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