Old Spirits of Capitalism: Managers and Masculine Alterity in/as the Korean Office

Abstract

This article analyzes the aging of a figure of labor: the male Korean office manager.In contrast to its normative heyday in late twentieth century East Asia, the figure of the older manager has become a devalued and deviant figure in contemporary Korea.Based on ethnography of a Korean white-collar workplace, I argue that the older male manager has emerged as a "figure of alterity" that seems to permeate all aspects of Korean company life.By attuning to how indexes of this figure are marked across different areas of office life, from everyday narration to policy, I show how their negative presence can be cited to justify new office reforms.Younger managers shape their own office identities in contrast to older figures, and formal office policies implicitly target managerial stereotypes.An 'old' spirit of capitalism, embodied in a personified figure, is just as central in articulating and differentiating models of capitalist subjectivity and institutional identity as a new one.[Labor, Gender, Korea, Aging, Corporations, Enfiguration] 季 ユ鎌薩 ヤ穐惨 謹殊算 他∀ カ熊 斤竃寂 ◆悔伺慰惨 ヤ荊 黛謹雑 欺隅他И.20粂Ｆ 単簡 穐抗鍵抗惨 １顔肢算 脂熊Ｆ轟 急礁鉱 稀 芋, ィ珊 界薩 ◆悔伺惨 卒１鉱λ 黛Ъ 他∀ 斤奪轟遇 掻， 至村梓＄ 急誌謹肢算 ｛札音 急菖若＄ 暫И.

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