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

Abstract

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, migration has become a part of daily life for many Central Asians. This includes internal, cross-border, short- and long-term migration, and remittances. Much of the literature on Central Asian migration focuses on low-skilled labour migration, irregular status and legal vulnerability, situating migrants within analyses of exploitation, stratified incorporation and migrant-worker regimes. Recent migration research increasingly conceptualises mobility as an aspirational and capability-dependent process emphasising how desires for education, autonomy, and future possibilities shape migration trajectories alongside structural constraints. This article examines Tajik women in South Korea, drawing on interviews with 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 coexistence of agency and vulnerability, opportunity and constraint. Theoretically, by showing that migration can generate 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 migrants experience capability expansion under conditions of conditional belonging.