Ambivalent cosmopolitan desires: Newly arrived Koreans in Australia and community websites

Abstract

This article examines the ways in which the online community media practices of newly arrived Koreans (mainly international students and working holiday visa holders) demonstrate ambivalent cosmopolitan desires. Focusing on user comments on the Melbourne Sky community website, this article explores how these ambivalent transcultural desires combine a yearning for home with the striving for cosmopolitanism. Driven by a globalization-fuelled obsession with learning English, many Koreans have crossed cultural borders into Australia in pursuit of a cosmopolitan lifestyle, mingling with new cultures and people. However, when arriving in Australia they soon face an uncanny (un/familiar) reality, which enhances their desire to reconnect with their familiar mother culture. Their online community participation practices demonstrate these clashing cosmopolitan desires. These opposing desires stimulate the negotiation between a familiar I and strange local Others, eventually reinforcing the construction of these ambivalent transcultural identities. © 2013 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.