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Across the world, protest has become a much-debated tactic in struggles against inequality, political corruption, and ecological disaster. In South Korea, protest is a ubiquitous and essential form of political expression. In 1987, mass protests forced reforms that led to democratizing government. In 2017, the Candlelight movement removed the sitting president. Beyond these spectacular national protests, Korean workers and minority groups regularly turn to protest to express their grievances and assert their rights.
Based on long-term ethnographic research with labor and social movement activists, Against Abandonment is at once a chronicle of the life-and-death character of protesting precarity in South Korea and a searing examination of repertoires of solidarity for upending injustice. Protest forms such as long-term encampments, life-threatening hunger strikes, and perilous high-altitude occupations are agonizing to perform and to witness but often powerful as catalysts for change. Chun and Han situate South Korean protest in transnational context to demonstrate how the struggles of South Korean workers are inextricably tied to the globalized conditions of neoliberal capitalism. Building on the work of abolitionist feminist thinkers, the book theorizes protest as a political form with far-reaching resonance across history and geography, and underscores the significance of collective survival, self-determination, and emancipatory transformation.
"This extraordinary book looks to the seemingly strange world of extreme protest and offers vital insight into contemporary political life. Han and Chun's analysis is as generative as it is probing, showing how through spectacular acts of refusal, people without economic or existential security create infrastructures to transform their worlds." —Deborah Cowen, University of Toronto
"Chun and Han focus on how workers use protest to amplify the precariousness of their existence in the South Korean economy, as they are faced with debt, shame, and early death due to the fact that most of them (especially women) are devalued, wasted, disenfranchised, and seen as expendable or disposable.... Recommended." —K. Lynass, CHOICE
"[Against Abandonment] will be an inspiration for scholars and activists alike who are in search of a different politics and sociality grounded in mutual recognition. Ultimately, it is a call for a renewed ethical commitment to solidarity with one another." —Hae Yeon Choo, Social Forces
"By centering on precarious female workers' protests in the post-authoritarian period, Against Abandonment adds a new dimension to existing scholarship: the nexus between gender, precarity, and social movements.... Against Abandonment is a beautifully written, powerful text." —Myungji Yang, Journal of Urban Affairs
Notes on Romanization, Translation, and Use of Hangul
Preface and Acknowledgments
Introduction: Life-and-Death Protests
1. Refusing Precarity
2. Rituals and Repertoires
3. Conjuring Solidarity
4. Caring Infrastructure
5. Protest as Place Making
Conclusion: Hope and Failure
Glossary
Notes
Bibliography
Index