Migrant Conversions: Transforming Connections between Peru and South Korea

Erica Vogel

Open Access Published by University of California Press 2020

Migrant Conversions

Transforming Connections between Peru and South Korea

Erica Vogel

Volume 3 in the series Global Korea

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780520974579

Overview
Contents

About this book

A free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org.

Peruvian migrant workers began arriving in South Korea in large numbers in the mid 1990s, eventually becoming one of the largest groups of non-Asians in the country. Migrant Conversions shows how despite facing unstable income and legal exclusion, migrants come to see Korea as an ideal destination. Some even see it as part of their divine destiny. Faced with looming departures, Peruvians develop cosmopolitan plans to transform themselves from economic migrants into pastors, lovers, and leaders. Set against the backdrop of 2008’s global financial crisis, Vogel explores the intersections of three types of conversions— money, religious beliefs and cosmopolitan plans—to argue that conversions are how migrants negotiate the meaning of their lives in a constantly changing transnational context. At the convergence of cosmopolitan projects spearheaded by the state, churches, and other migrants, Peruvians change the value and meaning of their migrations. Yet, in attempting to make themselves at home in the world and give their families more opportunities, they also create potential losses. As Peruvians help carve out social spaces, they create complex and uneven connections between Peru and Korea that challenge a global hierarchy of nations and migrants. Exploring how migrants, churches and nations change through processes of conversion reveals how globalization continues to impact people’s lives and ideas about their futures and pasts long after they have stopped moving, or that particular global moment has come to an end.

Author / Editor information

Vogel Erica :

Erica Vogel is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Saddleback College.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
List of Illustrations Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Introduction: Constructing “The End” Open Access Download PDF	1
1. Peru, South Korea, Peru . . . Open Access Download PDF	32
2. Monetary Conversion Open Access Download PDF	60
3. Religious Conversion Open Access Download PDF	82
4. Cosmopolitan Conversion Open Access Download PDF	109
Epilogue Open Access Download PDF	127
Notes Open Access Download PDF	135
Bibliography Open Access Download PDF	149
Index Open Access Download PDF	155

Language: English
Publisher: University of California Press
Pages
- Main content: 188

eBook

Published: March 10, 2020
ISBN: 9780520974579