Aspirational Migration and Negotiated Belonging: Tajik Women, Faith and Gender in South Korea
Aspirational Migration and Negotiated Belonging: Tajik Women, Faith and Gender in South Korea

Summary/Abstract: Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, migration has become an integral part of daily life for many Central Asians. This includes internal, cross-border, short- and long-term migration, and sending and receiving remittances. To date, much of the literature on Central Asian migration focuses on low-skilled labour migration, irregular status and legal vulnerability, situating migrants within broader analyses of exploitation, stratified incorporation and migrant-worker regimes. While these dynamics remain important, recent migration research increasingly conceptualises mobility as an aspirational and capability-dependent process rather than a simple response to economic deprivation, emphasising how desires for education, autonomy, and future life possibilities shape migration trajectories alongside structural constraints. This article addresses these debates by examining the migration trajectories of Tajik women in South Korea, drawing on interviews with female migrants. We offer novel frameworks to the field of migration. Empirically, we illustrate that migration to South Korea is experienced neither as a straightforward route to emancipation nor as a condition of unrelenting precarity. Instead, women’s narratives reveal a patterned coexistence of agency and vulnerability, opportunity and constraint. Theoretically, by showing that migration can generate meaningful improvements in women’s lives without producing secure incorporation, legal permanence or full social belonging, we place the Capability Approach at the centre of the analysis, integrating insights from gendered migration theory, legal stratification, transnationalism and intersectionality. Our research demonstrates how female migrants experience capability expansion under conditions of conditional belonging.

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