Multicultural Minority Groups and Multicultural Coexistence in Korean Society

Abstract

This article aims to examine situations of multicultural minority groups in Korean society, analyze Koreans' perceptions of and relations with these groups, and to propose a new principle of coexistence between the majority and minority groups. Here, multicultural minority groups refer to migrant workers, marriage migrants, children of multicultural families, Korean Chinese, overseas Chinese, and North Korean migrants. Relationships between these groups and Koreans are determined largely by whether they are Korean nationals or not, compatriots or not, and legal foreigners or not. These group-specific logics are inconsistent with each other and discriminatory and thus not appropriate to become the principle of coexistence among peoples of different cultural backgrounds in a multicultural society. I propose cohabitation as the principle of multicultural coexistence by which foreigners and migrants are acknowledged as the residents of local communities and cohabitants of South Koreans who share the residence and have interdependent relationships.