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Durham E-Theses Durham E-Theses `Hands Up': Female Call Centre Workers' Labour, Protest and Health in the Seoul Digital Industrial Complex, Korea KIM, KWANWOOK How to cite: KIM, KWANWOOK (2017) `Hands Up': Female Call Centre Workers' Labour, Protest and Health in the Seoul Digital Industrial Complex, Korea , Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/12236/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 ‘Hands Up’: Female Call Centre Workers’ Labour, Protest and Health in the Seoul Digital Industrial Complex, Korea Kwanwook Kim Faculty of Social Sciences and Health Department of Anthropology Durham University 2017 Abstract ‘Hands Up’: Female Call Centre Workers’ Labour, Protest and Health in the Seoul Digital Industrial Complex, Korea Kwanwook Kim This paper is based on research into the lived experience of female call centre workers in South Korea. A call centre has become a representative field-site to investigate the suffering of female workers in Korea, having been likened to the ‘sweatshop of the 20th century’ because of its panopticon-like supervision, regimentation of time, repetitive work. In reality, the current lives of female call handlers in Seoul Digital Industrial Complex seems not to improve compared to the past lives of the factory girls of the textile industry in the 1970s and 80s at the same industrial area, called Guro Industrial Complex. It can be inferred particularly from the perspectives of ‘chemical employeeship’ (i.e. workers depending on chemicals including caffeine and cigarette to work longer and harder for securing one’s job) and ‘cultural gravity’ (i.e. workers following the cultural force operating to demand their body be docile and industrious) In the context of Korean call centre industry, I have sought the worker’s reality of labour, protest and health through focusing on three different types of ‘hands up.’ The first ‘hands up’ describes that call handlers have to put one’s hands up to go to the toilet, which is humiliating to them and represents the unfair working condition. Secondly, the use of ‘hands up’ is a gesture of defiance of the first call centre labour union in Korea. I explored how hard it was physically and mentally to establish the collective resistance, but also observed the call handlers’ shrunken bodies or daunted mind could stretch out through the opportunity created by the labour union. Lastly, I found female call handlers’ ‘hands up’ gesture as a self-healing exercise, called ‘mompyeogi undong’ meaning ‘stretching body exercise.’ This exercise helped the participants improve their health physically and mentally as well as elevating self-esteem. ‘Hands Up’: Female Call Centre Workers’ Labour, Protest and Health in the Seoul Digital Industrial Complex, Korea Kwanwook Kim This Thesis is submitted as a partial requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Department of Anthropology, Durham University 2017 Table of Contents 1. The Sick Smile of Korean call centre women………………………….………...…..1 1.1 Hwabyung, anger (fire) disease of a female call handler……………………………….....2 1.2 Gabjil, Confucianism and emotional labour in Korea……………………………………6 1.3 Exploring ‘Hands Up’ amongst female call handlers…………………………………....12 1.4 The outline of the thesis……………………………………………………………...….14 2. Call Centres, Different Issues in Different Countries………………………………18 2.1 Electronic panopticon?: the surge of the call centre industry………………………...….19 2.2 Cyber coolies or cyber professionals?: the internationalization of the call centres and subsequent issues in India…………….………………………………………………..26 2.3 Smile and smoke: emotional labour and chemical employee-ship in Korean call centres…………………………………………………………………………….……34 2.4 Conclusion: a call from call centres…………………………………………………..…43 3. Body as Fieldnote: the Core of Labour and Health…………………………………45 3.1 Drugging employees? Chemical employeeship and phenomenology…………....…….46 3.1.1 “Let’s take a medicine”: origin of the idea of chemical employeeship…...…...…….46 3.1.2 What does the notion of chemical employeeship mean?...........................................51 3.1.3 Grasping ‘lived experience’: the necessity of phenomenological approaches….......57 3.2 Body as a field-note: from Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of body………………....62 3.2.1 Body schema and motor intentionality: the foundation of Merleau-Ponty’s idea…...62 3.2.2 Subjectivity as embodied and inter-corporeal…………………………………...…66 3.2.3 The relationship of body schema and habitus to cultural gravity……………………73 3.3 Conclusion: vitality of phenomenology…………………………………………….…80 4. ‘Being (T)Here’ : From the Pilot to Main research journey………………..……….82 4.1 ‘Being There?’ or ‘Being Here, again?’………………………………………..………83 4.2 Pilot journey to a call centre in 2012……………………………………………..…….87 4.3 Settling down for my main fieldwork………………………………………...………..90 4.4 Engaging with the field…………………………………………….…………………..93 4.4.1 Overall sketch of fieldwork……………………………………...………………….93 4.4.2 Walking in the city, Seoul Digital Industrial Complex 1,2 and 3………………...…99 4.4.3 People and organisations………………………………………………………….103 4.4.4 Documentary film, ‘Factory Complex’………………….…………………..…….106 4.4.5 Practicing exercise together……………………………………….……..………..107 4.5 Ethical considerations……………..……..…………………………………………..108 4.6 Reflection on positionality…………………………………………...………………110 4.6.1 Awakening talks……………………………………………………….…………..113 4.6.2 Bodily practice………………………………………………………….…………115 4.7 Conclusion: The rite de passage of becoming an anthropologist………………….….117 5. The remnants of Factory Girls in the Industrial Complex………………....………119 5.1 First impressions of the Seoul Digital Industrial Complex (SDIC)…………………...119 5.1.1 Stunning buildings and big ashtray……………………………………………..…119 5.1.2 SDIC, complex of heterogeneous spaces…………………………………...……..124 5.1.3 The Zero Gravity Area in the SDIC………………………………………….…….128 5.2 Looking for hidden call handlers in the SDIC…………………………….…………..130 5.2.1 Through the Health Sector……………………………………………….………..131 5.2.2 Through the Welfare Sector…………………………………….......……………..135 5.2.3 Through the Labour Union Sector………………………………………..……….136 5.3 Rebirth of Factory Girls in 2015……………………………………….……………..141 5.3.1 ‘The Statue of Woman of Export’: Inheriting ‘the Factory New Community Movement’……………………………………………………………………….142 5.3.2 ‘Factory New Community Movement’ and Industrial Soldier…………………….148 5.3.3. The Workers’ Living Experience Centre in Guro Industrial Complex…………….150 5.4 ‘Hands Up’ of Factory Girls in the 1970s and 80s………………………………….…155 5.4.1 Lived experience of a factory girl’s ‘hands up’…………………………..………..155 5.4.2 Bodily suffering of Factory Girls………………………………………….………162 5.5 Conclusion: from a factory girl to an irregular worker……………………….……….168 6. ‘Hands Up’ in ‘Humiliation’ : the modern sweatshop, call centre and worker’s health………………………………………………………………………………..170 6.1 Call centres, the last bastion in the era of unemployment……………………………..170 6.2 The call centre as digitalised modern sweatshop………………………….………….174 6.2.1 Direct and Digitalised ‘Supervision’………………………………..……………..175 6.2.2 Labour force ‘Grading’………………………………………………..…………..178 6.2.3 Marking one’s sickness………………………………………………...………….183 6.3 Call handlers’ bodily suffering………………………………………………………..185 6.3.1 “I am a low-priced disposable battery”…………………………………..………..185 6.3.2 Pain, prevalent but delegitimated………………………………………………….187 6.3.3 Chemical solutions, not ‘ruining’ my body but ‘healing’ it………..........................191 6.3.4 Call centre, smoker’s heaven or hell?.......................................................................195 6.3.5 Mute button and visible sighs of smoke……………………………………….…..200 6.4 Call handlers’ emotional suffering……………………………………………..……..202 6.4.1 Humiliation by customers: ‘Mouth becoming dirty’………………………..……..202 6.4.2 Humiliation by managers: ‘Hands up’ for the toilet……………………………......205 6.4.3 Humiliation by colleagues: ‘Bullying’ in the centre……………………….………209 6.5 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………..…..215 7. ‘Hands Up’ in ‘Protest’: establishing a labour union in a call centre………..…….217 7.1 Rise of the call centre issues regarding emotional labour…………………………..…217 7.2 Backgrounds of the first call centre labour union establishment……………….……..221 7.2.1 Socioeconomic background: the difficulties of collective resistance in the unstable labour market in Korea………………………………………………………...…221 7.2.2 Personal background: death after death…………………………………...………227 7.3 Progress of the union and its effects…………………………………..………………233 7.3.1 First step for the union and subsequent struggles…………………………….……233 7.3.2 Living as the union leader, a single mother and a woman………………………….237 7.3.3 Achievements of the labour union: “We feel reassured!”………………………….241 7.4 Testimonies from the union members’ own bodies……………………….…………..244 7.4.1 “A grilled dry squid on the
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