Remaking ethnic nationalism: evangelical protestant women’s discourses of multiculturalism in South Korea

Abstract

ABSTRACT Researchers have argued that religion has direct and indirect connections with nationalism, and they have called for conceptual clarity about the role of religion in the construction of nationalism. I extend the insights of this scholarship into reevaluating the alteration of ethnic nationalism in Korea. Drawing on interviews with evangelical Protestant women attending a megachurch in Seoul, this study explores who evangelical women are willing to include as members of Korea and in what conditions the women are inclined to include these individuals. My findings suggest that women use evangelical mission work as a rhetorical device to create a broader membership category, regardless of skin color, to imagine members of Korea. Women’s participation in volunteer works shapes their expectation of immigrants’ appreciation of Korean language, food, and civic etiquette. Challenging the prevalent view that ethnic nationalism is declining, I argue that it has survived but shifted its focus from bloodline to ethnic culture.