62nd WIAPS Seminar

Date&Time

July 8, 2019 (Monday) 12：15-12：50

Venue

早稲田大学19号館（西早稲田ビル）7階713会議室

Intended Audience

WIAPS専任教員・助手, WIAPS受入の交換研究員・訪問学者・外国人研究員, GSAPS修士課程・博士後期課程在学生

Presentation1

Presenter

キム　イルジュ（早大アジア太平洋研究科講師）

Presentation Theme

Voting as Gendered Performance:Marriage Immigrants’ Voting Practices in South Korea

Abstract

This study examines the voting practices of Filipina and Vietnamese marriage immigrants in South Korea. Drawing on in-depth interviews of women, I show how marriage immigrants’ voting becomes a site of bargaining and political empowerment, wherein women strategize to maximize their security and optimize their life options within a patriarchal host society. Seen as a family affair, voting decisions are the result of women’s constant negotiation with the gendered norms and expectations that they face within the family and community. I challenge the extant use of voting in immigration scholarship as the primary indicators of immigrants’ understanding and internalization of the host country’s political system. Instead, this study highlights the need to actually examine the context in which immigrants’ political participation is realized, and what meaning immigrants give to this practice.