Sohoon Yi
Most migrant care workers in South Korea are Joseonjok migrants, ethnic Koreans from Northeastern China. Korean Chinese migrants have an ambiguous identity, with a shared Korean ethnicity but a different social culture and citizenship. The ambiguity necessitates sophisticated immigration control technologies, especially given the official desire of the South Korean state to incorporate Korean Chinese populations selectively. The visa pathways between temporary Working Visit Status (H-2 visa) and long-term Overseas Korean Status (F-4 visa) provide an apt site for observing temporal techniques of bordering and in/exclusion. Using migrant care work in South Korea as a case study, the paper interrogates the relationship between control and time norms in three timescales, namely the temporality of immigration control, the control of time in a gendered work regime, and migrants’ lifecycle expectations. The visa pathways to long-term status open for migrant care workers when they demonstrate three disciplinary traits, quality, docility, and invisibility, which are considered desirable by the immigration authorities. However, demonstrating such traits requires migrants to acrobatically maneuver their timescales to mediate contradictions.