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Crossing Boundaries and Reconstructing Identity through Naming: The Transnational Lives of Mongolian Marriage Migrant Women

  • 아시아여성연구
  • 2026, 65(2), pp.313~370
  • DOI : 10.14431/jaw.2026.8.65.2.313
  • Publisher : Research Institute of Asian Women
  • Research Area : Interdisciplinary Studies > Gender Studies
  • Received : June 11, 2026
  • Accepted : June 29, 2026
  • Published : August 30, 2026

Shin, Nanding 1

1전남대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This study conducted in-depth interviews in Mongolian with 19 Mongolian women marriage migrants to analyze the strategies of boundary-making in the host society and transnational identity reconstruction through boundary-crossing in the naming process. South Korean society’s national naming system seeks to incorporate women marriage migrants into a patriarchal order, during which individual agency, personal respect for foreign names, and gender equality are systematically marginalized. Research findings reveal that the host society’s institutional mechanisms - specifically online administrative systems and family relationship certificates - operate as devices that erect and maintain firm barriers between nationals and non-nationals, and between South Korean and foreign names. The assimilationist model that requires Korean name-changing as a prerequisite for social participation structurally prevents marriage migrants from accessing the host society while preserving their identities. Nevertheless, despite institutional assimilationist boundary-making, Mongolian women marriage migrants emerge as active agents who strategically protect their transnational lives within discriminatory structures by subjectively choosing and creatively transforming naming practices. Specifically, Mongolian women marriage migrants flexibly navigate the institutional barriers of the host society through diverse boundary-crossing strategies: selecting Korean phonetic transcription names that preserve the meaning of their original names, simultaneously using both Mongolian and Korean names, and maintaining Mongolian names within family and community contexts. These strategies represent not merely a rejection of assimilation, but rather a practice of transnational subjectivity that fluidly reconstructs identity between two cultures and actively negotiates multiple belongings. On the basis of this analysis, this study proposes four policy directions: improvement of administrative systems and official documents to accommodate foreign names, enhancement of public officials’ awareness and respect for foreign names, guarantee of women marriage migrants’ autonomous right to name selection, and establishment of an inclusive naming system responsive to the transnational migration era.

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