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Speaking Student Activism in the 2010s—Experience of Student Activism in the 1990s and 2010s and the Composition of ‘We’

  • Journal of Popular Narrative
  • 2020, 26(1), pp.135-174
  • DOI : 10.18856/jpn.2020.26.1.005
  • Publisher : The Association of Popular Narrative
  • Research Area : Interdisciplinary Studies > Interdisciplinary Research
  • Received : January 17, 2020
  • Accepted : February 14, 2020
  • Published : February 28, 2020

Kim， Si-yeon 1

1연세대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The article focuses on the student activism experience of the 1990s and 2010s and on the accumulation of everyday experiences created by the conditions of the 2010s against the backdrop of differences in how the composition of ‘we’ is portrayed in oral narrative. What stands out in the 90s oral narratives on student activism experiences, which were compiled in the 2010s, is the distancing of the culture of student activism at that time. In the words of speakers who experienced university life in the 1990s, the culture of student activism at the university was created through private relationships, and was, needless to say, considered ‘natural’. At the same time, however, the ‘natural’ is said to be ‘abnormal’ or ‘strange’ in the context of the 2010s in which it is being talked about, and is meant to be an experience with a certain distance from the present speakers. This aspect is associated with the conditions under which the experience of the 90s is being described in the 2010s. The present, which explains past experiences to speakers, was explained after the 2016 candlelight protest and Gangnam Station femicide protest, and is described as a world that is qualitatively different from before, and is located as an opportunity to create a critical distance from past experiences. This qualitative change, which raises suspicions about the homogenous “we”, is based on a newly acquired sense of gender sensitivity, living since the mid-2010s, when gentler issues were the biggest topic in Korean society, among others. In the 2010s, the composition of ‘we’ is no longer understood as a community of people who share any commonality, but as individuals who unite despite numerous differences. This reveals the experiences of those who have already embodied this in their everyday senses in the 2010s. The ‘we’ they formed should have nothing to do with private relationships, nor was homogeneity considered the most prominent group, so it was nothing that could explain the ‘me’ at the time of the demonstration and outside of the venue. It was in that context that the relevant experience was described in a cautious manner throughout. This, in turn, raises the need to ask and understand a new sense of student activism and, moreover, social movements and the sense of unity as ‘we’. It should also be asked who is the main body of the movement and what is the use of asking it. Soon, the need and meaning of defining the fixed identity of ‘we’ in the movement should be questioned. Therefore, it should be asked what fixed positions or coordinates can really represent someone’s position.

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This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.
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