2000년대 다문화소설 속 노동공간에 나타난 이주노동자의 중층적 타자성과 그 의미

Abstract

The foreign worker problem is one of the representative social problems in Korean society that are being illuminated through various media such as novels, dramas, and movies. Among them, novels are a remarkable medium in that they depict the lives of foreign workers from various angles. This is because it deals with not only the problem of labor, but also various problems such as discrimination and hatred, and the diaspora of mixed-race children. In this regard, the fact that many of the novels dealing with the problem of foreign workers were created in the 2000s after the enactment of the Foreign Workers Employment Act will mean that the problem of foreign workers in this period existed more openly than in other periods. Then, how do the multicultural novels of the 2000s deal with the problem of foreign workers? The identity of a place is defined through the behavior and psychology of the person who belongs to the place or the person who wants to belong to it. This means that even if it is the same space, the perception of space may vary depending on the person. Therefore, this paper examines the identity of foreign workers in multicultural novels in the 2000s, and analyzes how such identities make them perceive the labor space or how the identity changes by the labor space. Since the labor space is a space that prioritizes capital, it can be said that it is a space that otherizes all workers. However, unlike Koreans, foreign workers are marginalized through additional otherization in the labor space. Physically, they are reduced to illegal immigrants by capitalists, and they are in a state where they cannot escape the labor space or resist discrimination and oppression. Korean workers also discriminate against foreign workers in order to avoid losing their jobs, and as a result, foreign workers sometimes experience mental othering, relegating them to the lowest class. Foreign workers experience multi-layered othering and lose their humanity, subjectivity, and identity. This occurs because of forced settlement where people must not leave the labor space for self-actualization and to avoid becoming illegal immigrants. In that it is a problem that would not arise if it were not part of the labor space, it can be seen that space is affecting migrant workers. The labor space is a space of brainwashing that stratifies races and exploits foreigners by turning them into criminals, while also functioning as a prison.