Yuk Joowon | Between Pig Heads and Racist Banners: The Politics of Mosque Construction in South Korea

Harvard-Yenching Institute Visiting Scholar Talks
Co-sponsored by the Harvard Korea Institute

Yuk Joowon
Professor, Kyungpook National University; HYI Visiting Scholar, 2025-26

Chair/Discussant: Sun Joo Kim, Harvard-Yenching Professor of Korean History, Harvard University

Abstract:
Although Muslims constitute only a small fraction of South Korea’s population, Islamophobia has intensified markedly over the past decade. This rise parallels a shift in public discourse from a migration–development nexus toward increasingly exclusionary, “(Korean) nationals first” narratives that conflate migration with national security threats. South Korea’s belated and precarious multicultural discourse—premised on a hierarchical migration regime—has proved strikingly short-lived.

This talk examines the highly contested construction of the Daruleeman Mosque in Daegu, a case that drew international media and policy attention for the grotesque display of pigs’ body parts at the construction site. Drawing on four years of ethnographic action research (2021–present), I trace multi-scalar bordering practices enacted by anti-mosque resident protesters, local authorities, and far-right Protestant networks. Through this analysis, I illuminate the dynamics of social conflict surrounding migrant communities and the racial, cultural, and religious fault lines of South Korean society.

By situating the Daruleeman controversy within the global circulation of Islamophobic discourses, the active mobilization of far-right Protestant groups, and growing anti-immigrant nationalism, this talk contributes to broadening the study of Islamophobia and racism beyond Western contexts and highlights how these transnational ideologies are locally rearticulated in South Korea.

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