The changing faces of racism: Tracing the racial state through mixed-race categories in South Korea

Abstract

This paper examines the emergence and development of mixed-race categories in South Korea in the context of the shift in the state's governing practices from the postwar period to the present. In particular, “mixed-race” serves as a conceptual framework for tracing the formation of Korea's racial state with respect to the distinct categories of Amerasians and the children of multicultural families. Drawing on theoretical approaches to racism, racial state, and biopower, I examine the treatment of mixed-race individuals in the regulation of the Korean population since the middle of the previous century. I document a shift in the subject-positions of these individuals from the status of homo sacer to that of homo economicus, each of which is associated with distinct modes of racism. The findings presented here have implications for critical mixed-race studies in Korea and East Asia more broadly and for expanding the understanding of the nexus of race, state, and power.