Becoming "the little ghost": The social and cultural construction of illegal thai migrant workers in South Korea

Abstract

© 2020 Primrose Hall Publishing Group. This study aims to determine the social and cultural forces that construct the experiences of illegal Thai migrant workers to be so-called, "little ghosts", working in South Korea. A multi-sited ethnography and content analysis were utilised in this study to display the complexity of the structural determinants driving the Thais from the rural villages to become illegal workers in South Korea. Those social and cultural forces include: (1) the marginalisation of the rural communities of the nation state's development; (2) the cultural meaning of the workers in abroad as the "Phor Liang Nork"-the Thai dialect term means "the overseas millionaire"; (3) the inaccessibility to the government's migrant worker employment system; and (4) normalisation of the "illegal workers". The study suggests needing to limit the myth of social representation and blaming the victims towards the illegal workers, and to providing the support for reintegration. This includes labour market information, entrepreneurial training or overseas legal employment and life advice that would allow enhancing the skills and experience of illegal migrant workers.