• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.43 no.6
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• pp.894-913
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• 2008

This study examines scale issues in the contemporary feminist migration literature. Scale appears as important, yet poorly understood concept in this field of study. The increasing attention to the feminization of migration requires not only gendered, but also scalar-sensitive approaches. Feminists criticize the conventional approach to the migration as a gender-blind approach that privileges national scale around which migration processes are organized. Claiming multiscalar and interscalar analyses, they propose investigations ranging from macro to micro processes which include globalized gendered division of labor, transnational family networks, and reproduction which takes place in and through the bodies and homes of migrant women. The migrant women, the major actors in recent transnational migration, cross various borders: the national boundaries and the public and private divides, in particular. This crossover can unsettle patriarchal gender relations which have been established based on the physical and symbolic division of nation-states and public/private spheres. Blurring these divisions accompanies social construction of various scales. The transnational family networks of migrant women, for example, show the construction of a transnational scale by migrant women as well as globalization from below. This paper points out misunderstandings of scale in the feminist migration literature and attempts to fill the gaps by introducing the meanings and implications of scales developed mostly by feminist geographers. In so doing, it promotes the interdisciplinary communication.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.676-694
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• 2012

This paper investigates the regional distribution of female transnational marriage migrants by nationalities in South Korea. In addition, this research explores the regional distribution by nationalities, migration processes, and socioeconomic characteristics of female transnational marriage migrants in Chungcheongbuk-do in South Korea. Regarding the regional distribution of female transnational marriage migrants in South Korea, using location quotient, this study seeks to categorizes cities and counties in South Korea into five groups. Furthermore, using Thomas method, this paper tries to stereotype cities and counties in Chungcheongbuk-do into six groups, in order to identify significant nationalities in each group. The concept of transnationalism refers to the recent phenomenon that transnational social networks are prominent, linking societies at the global scale, as international migration has been rapidly increasing due to the globalization. Transnationalism provides insight into the in-depth understanding of socio-spatial structure of international migrants, transnational social networks, transnational identities, cultural hybridization, and so on.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.50 no.3
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• pp.289-303
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• 2015

This paper is an introductory research to theorize women migrants' positionality in the era of globalization and the feminization of migration. It particularly examines three recent theoretical approaches within feminist studies and their application to the feminist migration study. Migration means a process of continuous negotiations of one's social and material positions within ever changing relations and situations through crossing various borders including national boundaries. Women migrants face multifaceted oppressions due to gendered relation and greater challenges to transform their identities. They embody politics of location through migration. The paper revolves around theories that explore a potential of feminist subjectivation of marginalized women such as female migrants through their identity negotiation and transformation. The theories in questions are Borderlands and the New Mestiza introduced by Gloria $Anzald{\acute{u}}a$, Intersectionality of oppressions, and Transpositions and the Nomadic Subjects by Rosi Braidotti who borrowed the theories of Deleuze and Guattari through feminist critiques. These theories all represent power relations and subject transformations through spatial metaphors. rough spatialized understandings, the paper proposes interlocking relations among space, gender and migration, and explores conceptual tools as well as epistemological insights for Korean migration study.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.64 no.2
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• pp.325-354
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• 2012

The current research intends to analyse the construction process of gender in the biographies of migrant women. Ten autobiographical-narrative interviews with Korean female migrant workers in Germany were conducted and the following conclusions were ascertained through the analysis of Schutze's autobiographical-narrative interview: The genders in their biographies were constructed similar before their marriage, but different after their marriage according to the work-family balanced type and the family centered type. Before their migration the 'process of life' as female high school students and female workers showed that both types had partially deconstructed a sex-segregated gender. The process of life as female migrant workers after their migration showed that both types had partially constructed a sex-neutral gender. The process of life after their marriage exhibited that the former strengthened and strengthens a sex-neutral gender in a double position as female migrant workers and female marriage migrants, but the latter reconstructed a sex-segregated gender again and intensifies this in a process of time. Based on these results, some implications for the social work practice were addressed, which emerged from the understanding on the gender in the biographies of migrant women.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.50 no.2
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• pp.185-201
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• 2015

This paper suggests how Korean housemaids, called Sikmo, and Korean-Chinese migrant domestic workers have similar class positions and therefore form a dual identity in their interactions with female employers. rough spoken stories of the experiences of 27 females from Seoul, including Korean-Chinese domestic workers, Korean housemaids, and their employers, this research effectively overcomes the dichotomous discourse of natives versus foreigners. Instead it suggests the new interpretation that it is not foreignness but class inferiority of the domestic workers that plays a key role in establishing relationships with employers. Korean housemaids and Korean-Chinese domestic workers, both groups of whom are migrant workers, have developed coping strategies to enhance their labor value by spatially relocating themselves from their home society to a new society. They possess a similar labor status in women's history, being of low income, low education, and rural births. Consequently, these women experience 'translocal anchoring,' meaning their identities are intertwined with that of their home societies, and employers perceive them based on the characteristics of these places. The Korean employers perceive that the domestic workers' morality and intellectuality are inferior based on their class differences. This stigmatizing process leads employers to regard domestic workers as ambivalent people, not only threatening outsiders but also objects of pity, needing love and protection of their employers. The employers educate them culturally, teaching them skills to survive in the urban environment. These skills include cooking and language, in addition to advice on long-term plans to blend into society.