Political suicide among Korean youth

The article argues that the growth of worker protest suicide in the 2000s in South Korea is relatedto current neo-liberal political-economic conditions in Korea, including: 1) the growing crisis facingincreasingly irregular and part-time workers, and 2) the construction of an anti-labour legal regimegiving Korean workers few legal options for collective engagement in workplace actions. Legalobstacles facing labour activists include both business and state actors increasingly usingcompensation lawsuits and provisional seizure tactics to seize the assets of unions and strikingworkers. As the Korean labour movement finds itself increasingly marginalised by the cripplinganti-labour legal innovations of the last two decades, labour resistance has increasingly manifestedin extreme forms of individualistic protests, such as worker suicide. Though products of anomicdespair, these suicides retain the capacity to inspire collective labour action and to leverage change.KEYWORDS: labour movement; protest suicide; provisional seizure; neo-liberalism; Korea

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Political suicide among Korean youth

Abstract: View related articlesCiting articles: 1 View citing articles 2. This interpretation is usually given by those who are against the antigovernment movement and the violent nature of protest activity.

Cited by 4 publications

References 2 publications

The Trajectory of Protest Suicide in South Korea, 1970–2015

The Trajectory of Protest Suicide in South Korea, 1970–2015

Micromobilization and Suicide Protest in South Korea, 1970–2004

Korean Suicide Protest as Anomic Response to Labour Disempowerment

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