This lecture explores the cultural politics of socially constructed classificatory systems by using youth categories in South Korea as an analytical lens. It focuses on three interrelated issues. First, it examines the historical context in which the category of “youth (青年),” largely absent from public discourse since the 1980s, was reactivated from the early 2000s through the mid-2010s, acquiring new meanings as a demographic category, a political group, and a target of social welfare intervention. Second, it analyzes the sociocultural significance of mobilizing the signifiers of “youth” and “generation” in contemporary East Asian societies, which are increasingly characterized by the individualization of the life course and the stratification of transitions into adulthood—often normatively framed as pathways of upward social mobility. In this context, the lecture conceptualizes recent transformations in mobility not as spatial movement, but as socially regulated capacities to advance, remain suspended, or become blocked within expected life transitions. Third, the lecture situates recent youth policies in South Korea within broader frameworks of state governmentality, with particular attention to policies addressing socially withdrawn youth (孤立隱遁靑年), a Korean policy term used in a sense highly similar to the Japanese concept of hikikomori (ひきこもり). It argues that such policies often reinforce norms of normality by othering vulnerability, rather than challenging the structural conditions that produce it.

＊ About the Speaker：

Sungi Kim is a Research Professor at the Global China Research Institute, Pukyong National University. He received his Ph.D. in Media and Cultural Studies from Yonsei University in 2024. His research spans cultural studies, youth and generational politics, digital journalism, and online discourse. He is the author of Youth Selling Society (2019), “How Does Academic Discourse Construct the Knowledge of the Younger Generation?: With Focusing on Five Types of Theoretical Framework” (2025), “Doing Young Politicians: Focusing on the experiences and practices of local council members” (2025), “Bourdieu and the Concept of Generation: For the Research of Field-specific Generation” (2023), to list some.