Divided Cosmopolis? = Two Global Villages in Seoul

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

With its rapid globalization, Seoul is now attaining its new metropolitan character as what Mike Douglass calls a cosmopolis. District governments, NGOs, foreign residents and citizens act concertedly towards creating inclusive multi-cultural communities within their own municipal boundaries in line with the government’s enhanced globalization policy. However, though being at the different stage of place making, some global villages are more inclusive than others, mainly depending on the nationality or ethnicity of dominant foreign residents and the existing social features of areas in which the villages are situated. With this backdrop, this paper examines how differently two distinctive ethnic communities in Seoul are formed through their selective relationships with the mainstream social life of Seoul: the French community called Seorae Village in the upper middle class district (Seocho-gu) and the Korean-Chinese community called Yeonbeon Village in the working class district (Guro-gu). By comparing these two cases, the paper draws a conclusion that Seoul is a multi-culturally diversified but ethno-politically divided cosmopolis as duality of a neo-liberal global city.