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Paper short abstract

This paper explores Buryat labour migration to South Korea as a pursuit of a ‘good life’. More than a place to earn money, Korea is tightly entwined with migrants’ visions of a ‘good life’, while also shaping their dreams of alternative futures for their home region.

Paper long abstract

South Korea has been a popular labour migration destination for Buryats, a Mongol population in Southeast Siberia (Russian Federation), ever since visa-free travel was introduced in 2014. Typically, these migrants engage in various manual labour, with long hours of work, few days off, and harsh working and living conditions. However, Korea represents more than a place to earn money. To many migrants, it is tightly entwined with their visions of a ‘good life’, be it because of the country’s economic prosperity, enticing opportunities amid neoliberalism, or romanticisation of K-culture. To many Buryats, this new Asian-majority setting also provides a relief from everyday racism they have encountered as members of a minoritised group in Russia, and a vision of life in a democratic, prosperous Asian setting that contrasts their experience in Russia. Since Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine and military draft in 2022, Korea has become an even more important migrant destination amid economic precarity, but also a significant social and cultural reference point, as a counterweight to Russia’s authoritarian, militant, and Russo-centric regime. At the same time, migrants’ experience in Korea may often be disappointing, as they face precarity, inequality, and lack of long-term opportunities. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Korea in 2025 and supported by earlier fieldwork in Buryatia and Mongolia, this paper explores Buryat labour migration to South Korea as a pursuit of differing versions of a ‘good life’, marked by often unrealistic imaginaries of Korea but also shaping dreams of alternative futures for their home region.