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Mothering as Laboring: Navigating Cultural Discourses of Mothering as Marriage‐Labor Immigrants in Korea
Author(s) -
KimBossard MinSoo
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
anthropology of work review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.151
H-Index - 15
eISSN - 1548-1417
pISSN - 0883-024X
DOI - 10.1111/awr.12121
Subject(s) - immigration , ethnography , gender studies , sociology , identity (music) , political science , anthropology , physics , acoustics , law
This paper examines the ways in which marriage‐labor immigrants manage, facilitate, and fulfill discourses about mothering in Korea by giving birth to and raising children. Through a series of semi‐structured ethnographic interviews, “go‐along” interviews, and fieldwork with marriage‐labor immigrants in Korea in 2013, 2014, and 2015, I investigated the emergent tension and anxiety around the recent demographic changes in Korea and the subsequent impact on discourses about mothering. This paper concludes by exploring the implications of how the reproductive and affective labor of marriage‐labor immigrants functions in contemporary Korea to facilitate cultural discourses about gender, lineage, and national identity.