초록 열기/닫기 버튼
This study attempts a comparative analysis of the social movements of young people in East Asia. Since the 2000s, young people in East Asia have been coined as the “Three Giveup Generation” (South Korea), “Bomb Generation” (Taiwan), and “Loss Generation” (Japan), suggesting that they are in despair and lacking visions and hope for their future. However, the youths have been expressing their opinions on multiple issues in the form of organized action, such as the Anti-Constitutional Movement (Japan), the Sunflower Movement against China in the case of Taiwan, and the candlelight demonstrations and feminist protests in Korea. Though they share similar problems of youth unemployment, job insecurity, social inequality, their activism directed towards diverse issues and agendas reflecting each society’s contexts and situations. Therefore, such differences created multifaceted issues and agendas for future visions of youths. In this paper, I examined the similarities and differences of youth activism in East Asia and how they are related to the youth situation and politics in each country concerning frames and repertoires of movements. Also, based on research, I argue that young people developed their way of political engagement and contentious politics reflecting their context and conditions; therefore it is necessary to debunk ‘youth deficit model,’ which regards youth as mere victims of the society. Despite visible differences in issues and frames of contentions, East Asian youth politics share many commonalities regarding repertories such as frequent use of digital media and connections to youth cultures. First of all, the prevalent use of SNS made youth activists able to organize the boundary of campus activism reaching wider public. Secondly, the exposure to SNS and online media decreased the repressive violence towards demonstrators and created peaceful demonstrations. Therefore, diverse groups could participate in activisms and contentions. However, there are differences of critical issues in three countries’ contentions reflecting youth’s situations. Overall, the similarities and differences among the youth activism in East Asian countries revealed that, despite the shared problems of East Asia’s youths, they conjure visions and hopes for society in multifaceted ways.
