도쿄와 서울을 잇는 청년들의 위태로운 삶

This study intends to take a critical record upon the ordinary life of non-regular working youth who has hardly been anchored in and floating around in the mega-metropolitan city. This paper observes the disposable youth’s work culture by comparing the qualitative working conditions of young laborers cutting across the two mega-metropolitan global cities of Tokyo and Seoul. This study explores the precariousness of mobile work culture shown in both the freeters who are the part-time and non-regular workers in Tokyo and in young temporary workers in Seoul; what their resemblances and differences are; what is to be commonly shared between the two cases and what is not to be done yet in Seoul; and whether there is the alternative path of resistance and autonomy of the disposable young workers to neoliberalism in the two mega-cities. Methodologically, this study chooses the focused group interviews (FGI) to detail the precarious states of youth workers, who are used to share the common agendas despite the different social backgrounds. Going beyond simply presenting the statistical data, the FGI-based analysis would allow us to understand the living conditions of the young workers in details, such as their psychological insecurity, social pressure, a loss of standard life course, youth poverty. Finally, to insulate ‘hardship of life(ikizurasa)’ among young workers, this study suggests that we have to explore a cultural politics based on their reciprocity and solidarity with the social minorities.