"South Koreans in the Debt Crisis" is a detailed examination of the
logic underlying the neoliberal welfare state that South Korea
created in response to the devastating Asian Debt Crisis
(1997-2001). Jesook Song argues that while the government
proclaimed that it would guarantee all South Koreans a minimum
standard of living, it prioritized assisting those citizens
perceived as embodying the neoliberal ideals of employability,
flexibility, and self-sufficiency. Song demonstrates that the
government was not alone in drawing distinctions between the
"deserving" and the "undeserving" poor. Progressive intellectuals,
activists, and organizations also participated in the neoliberal
reform project. Song traces the circulation of neoliberal concepts
throughout South Korean society, among government officials, the
media, intellectuals, NGO members, and educated underemployed
people working in public works programs. She analyzes the embrace
of partnerships between NGOs and the government, the frequent
invocation of a pervasive decline in family values, the
resurrection of conservative gender norms and practices, and the
promotion of entrepreneurship as the key to survival.
Drawing on her experience during the crisis as an employee in a
public works program in Seoul, Song provides an ethnographic
assessment of the efforts of the state and civilians to regulate
social insecurity, instability, and inequality through assistance
programs. She focuses specifically on efforts to help two
populations deemed worthy of state subsidies: the "IMF homeless,"
people temporarily homeless but considered employable, and the "new
intellectuals," young adults who had become professionally
redundant during the crisis but had the high-tech skills necessary
to lead a transformed post-crisis South Korea.
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