초록/요약

This paper aims to conceptualize self-victimizing resistance as an independent repertoire of labor contention on the basis of South Korea's recent experiences. This repertoire refers to small-scale protests of precarious workers, who express opposition to abusive treatments in workplaces by intentionally ill-treating themselves and/or publicly commiserating with themselves. This repertoire differs from conventional ones in that most resisters are unorganized workers who mainly aim to disclose the unjust nature of employment practices of management and seek moral sympathy and political support from civil society observers. This paper argues that this repertoire has originated from the radical nature of employment rationalization in Korea. Not only difficulties in avoiding radical measures across industries but also the exclusion from institutional channels of political representation has made precarious workers place a universal human rights value against the measures and demonstrate such commitment through visually appealing and mentally stimulating activities. This paper offers a wider applicability of selfvictimizing resistance to other countries, including France, China and Japan, which have shared radical employment rationalization with Korea. This paper also discusses the condition under which the growing number of precarious workers could become a viable political actor in civil society.