Editors’ Introduction: Socio-Cultural and Political Changes in South Korea through a Discursive Lens

Abstract

It is fair to say that South Korea has been undergoing a lot of changes, both big and small, over the past few decades. One of the most salient is the gradual but still quite noticeable transition from an outwardly homogenous society into a multi-ethnic and multicultural one-that is, into a society that acknowledges, rather than hides, the empirical fact or reality of (growing) ethnic and racial diversity. This growing ethnic and racial diversity, as most observers know, is due to rising immigration composed of both labor migrants and so-called marriage migrants. It is a trend that began in the late 1980s and which shows little to no signs of abating after more than three decades. Moreover, given the country's remarkably low fertility rate of just 0.84 in 2020 and aging demographic profile, 1 the