Description

Alongside the celebrated candlelight protests, South Korea has witnessed the spread of unusual protest tactics in the context of diminishing political opportunities and movement decline in the age of neoliberalism. These tactics include prolonged protests atop high shipyard cranes, advertisement towers or power transmission towers (high-altitude protest), marching distances during which participants adopt the Buddhist practice of prostrating on the ground after every three steps as a form of protest (three-step-one-bow), occupation of public space where protesters set up protest camps and stage indefinite camp-ins that often last for years (protest camp), and persisting suicidal protests such as self-immolation. Why are South Korean protesters using these extreme means when alternatives are seemingly available? Who uses these tactics, and what do they accomplish? How do we make sense of the extreme protest repertoire? This talk explores why and how South Koreans resort to extreme protest forms on a regular basis, and what it tells us about the South Korean culture of protest in the 21st century.

Sun-Chul Kim is Assistant Professor of Korean Studies in the Department of Russian and East Asian Languages and Cultures, Emory University. His book, Democratization and Social Movements in South Korea, 1984-2002: Defiant Institutionalization (Routledge, 2016), examines the evolution of social movements in the course of South Korea’s democratization. His recent research focuses on extreme forms of protest and what they mean in the rapidly changing context of 21st century South Korea.