• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.68
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• pp.87-129
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• 2014

This paper addresses questions on the marginalized position of youths of 'Gangbuk' and elucidates how they construct their own identities in the individual trajectories of everyday life. Three years of research, including participatory observation and in-depth interviews, was conducted on nine students from Northeastern district of Seoul. The research also adopted reflexive photography interview method in order to encourage the informants to actively participate in the research. The result illustrates the diversity of the everyday life experiences. More 'marginalized' youths from middle to lower class background had to endure the burdens of their daily lives without programs. Still, they were elaborating their own cultural taste and positive self-narratives at the periphery of the mainstream culture, by practicing music, online community activities and bodily performances. They had to negotiate the crucial turn of life after their graduation, when they entered into the harsh social competition with limited resources. We observed how they gradually assimilate the identity of the 'working youth', some of them developing a positive valorization of their experiences labor. Findings underline the active role of the cultural practices in the making of class identity of the youth and the necessity of researches situating the making of class identity and the reproduction of the class for the youth in the larger geography of class culture in the contemporary Korean society. Lastly, it is argued that these youths should not be considered as determined subjects, who reproduce already established class identities, but as active agents of their lives who deserve more respects and attentions from the society.