The politics of conditional citizenship in South Korea: an analysis of the print media

This article shows how the meaning of citizenship has changed in South Korea since the partial emergence of a multicultural society in the past two decades. It does so by analysing how newspaper editorials have discussed multiculturalism, which is a multifaceted concept but one which weighs heavily on notions of citizenship. There is often a consensus about citizenship into mono-ethnic and homogeneous societies, even if it is not always clearly articulated or expressed. Societal and demographic change, however, requires such societies to change or at least revisit notions of citizenship. The article shows that the print media put the onus on migrants to adapt to society, but also for Koreans to accept the 'inevitable reality' of multiculturalism. Editorials advocated a form of conditional citizenship, whereby migrants would be incorporated into society without disrupting current notions of what it means to be a South Korean.