Globalizing Canadian Education from Below: A Case Study of Transnational Immigrant Entrepreneurship Between Seoul, Korea and Vancouver Canada

Abstract

Witnessing the rise of the international education industry for the last two decades, this study examines the role of Korean immigrant entrepreneurs who play an important role in promoting Canadian education in the global market. Relying on close social and cultural linkages between Korea and Canada, the ways in which Korean immigrant entrepreneurs operate their transnational business demonstrate how globalization actually works in practice. Exploring immigrant participation at the heart of the knowledge economy (education), we also ask if the entrepreneurial opportunities that are being cultivated by Korean-immigrants represent an innovative shift from traditional and low-level ethnic niche economies toward more lucrative opportunities.Résumé Témoin de l'essor de l'industrie internationale de l'éducation au cours des deux dernières décennies, cette étude examine le rôle important que jouent des entrepreneurs immigrants coréens dans la promotion de l'éducation canadienne sur le marché mondial. Basé sur des liens sociaux et culturels étroits entre la Corée et le Canada, le mode de gestion utilisé par les entrepreneurs immigrants coréens pour leurs entreprises transnationales illustre de manière concrète une mise en pratique véritable de la mondialisation. En explorant la participation des immigrants au coeur de l'économie du savoir (éducation), nous soulevons également la question suivante: les occasions entrepreneuriales cultivées par les immigrants coréens représentent-elles l'émergence d'une nouvelle tendance vers des occasions plus lucratives, a contrario des niches économiques ethniques traditionnelles et de bas niveau?

Is this Transnational Entrepreneurship? Five Cases in Which It Is Hard to Say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’

“…Scholars started using the notion of ‘transnationalism’ in the 1990s. Before that, policymakers and scholars commonly viewed migrants as passive subjects in host countries and expected them to acculturate in their new environments (Kwak & Hiebert, 2010; Urbano et al, 2011). In the classic acculturation argument, scholars and policymakers consider the context of the immigrants’ country of origin to be unimportant or sometimes even as unwanted attributes of immigrants.…”

“…This concept emerged through the discussions on transnationalism in the 1990s when anthropologists started to understand immigrants’ integration differently. What they challenged was the conventional view of that time that regarded migrants as submissive agents to their host country environments (Kwak & Hiebert, 2010). Instead, the concept of transnational entrepreneurship highlights the duality of immigrants as entrepreneurial agents who are embedded in two or more socio-economic contexts and create values through their cross-border entrepreneurial actions (Drori et al, 2009).…”

The stranger that is welcomed: female foreign students from Asia, the English language industry, and the ambivalence of ‘Asia rising’ in British Columbia, Canada

“…Until the 1980s, Asian immigrants were largely comprised of working-class and middle-class immigrants and refugees. From the mid-1980s onwards, political and economic changes in various parts of Asia and Canada's Investor and Business Immigrant Programs brought affluent entrepreneurs mainly from Taiwan (Wong 2004), Hong Kong (Mitchell 2004) and South Korea (Kwak 2008). Part of Canadian foreign policy to facilitate trade and migration between Canada and parts of Asia (Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada 2006, 1), this courting of Asian capital is consistent with the efforts of other countries and regions (such as Australia, New Zealand, the United States and the European Union) to take advantage of the economic ascendancy of some Asian countries and become 'Asia literate' (Pang 2005, 177).…”

“…Asian female migrants to the west have most often been conceptualized as victims of globalization: vulnerable and/or exploited domestic workers, mail-order brides, garment and factory workers, and sex workers (Piper and Roces 2003). More recently, Asian women in the west are also viewed as wives or mothers of transnational 'astronaut' (Waters 2002) and 'geese' (Kwak 2008) families, as wives of corporate businessmen (Kurotani 2005) and as independent single women who desire the west (Kelsky 1999). While Asian capital and the desired Asian migrant is primarily associated with a male subject, Mohanram (1999, 6) notes that there is a metaphorical link between bodies and nation.…”

A production of education migrants: A case study of South Korean transnational families in Canada

“…It has been well documented that education migration brings significant benefits to Canada by creating a lucrative international education industry (Kwak, 2008; Roslyn Kunin and Associates, 2009). Also well documented are the benefits and disadvantages that education migrants and their accompanying families have been faced with.…”