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“Precaritized Workers and Spaces of Protest in South Korea”

Wilson Building, Room 1003

20/03/2019, 2:30 pm - TO 20/03/2019 - 4:00 pm

Organizer: School of Labour Studies

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Jennifer Chun (Associate professor, Asian American Studies Department, International Institute, UCLA) is the author of the award-winning book, Organizing at the Margins: The Symbolic Politics of Labor in South Korea and the United States (Cornell University Press, 2009). In 2018 she co-edited a special issue of Critical Sociology entitled, “Care Work in Transition: Transnational Circuits of Gender, Care and Migration” with Heidi Gottfried and a special volume in Political Power and Social Theory entitled, “Gendering Struggles Against Informal and Precarious Work” with Rina Agarwala.

Protests have long been considered a weapon of the weak, enabling less powerful actors to make contested claims against more powerful entities. While many studies focus on the role of tactics and strategy, we still have much to learn about the importance of protest spaces in shaping the character and development of protest repertoires. This talk examines the shift towards more dramatic and ritualized protests among laid-off and precariously-employed workers in South Korea to understand why fights over the use and transformation of space have become so central to contemporary struggles against capitalist injustice.

No registration is required. ALL WELCOME!