- Title : Rethinking Multicultural Space from a Mega-Asian Perspective: Using Gimhae City’s Foreigner Street as an Example
- Author : Ilhong Ko (HK Professor) , Woo Jin Shim (HK Research Professor)
- Journal : Journal of Humanities, Seoul National University
- Publication Date : 2024.11.
- Abstract
This paper combines the concepts of “Mega-Asia” and “multicultural space” as an analytical tool to understand the mobility of immigrants and the space where diversity coexists, and explores the theoretical and empirical expansion of both concepts. Mega-Asia is a concept that seeks to overcome the pitfalls of regional territorialism and to understand Asia expansively as networks and relationships in a post-colonial context. It involves both macroscopic and microscopic approaches, but the latter has not been properly explored compared to the former. Multicultural space, which seeks to explain transnational migration and multicultural settlement by adopting a spatial approach, is useful as a concept that can help observe the “Mega-Asia within Korea.” By examining the multi-scale composition of this space and the coexistence of diversity using the “Foreigner Street” in Gimhae City as an example, this paper presents a theoretical analysis of the production and operation of multicultural space. Multicultural space is created in an emergent way, as global processes combine with local history and place; this is clearly revealed through the development trajectory and composition of Gimhae City’s Foreigner Street. These multicultural spaces have great implications for Korean society, which now finds itself at the crossroads of a multicultural transition, in that it seeks to coexist with diversity while mediating daily encounters between different groups.
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