| This dissertation presents an analysis of the cultural meaning of coffee consumption in neoliberal South Korea, and challenges the ways in which the commodification of brand-name coffee in South Korea both address and overlook the political, economic, and social restructuring of South Korea in the period following the Asian Financial Crisis. I am specifically interested in the gendered meaning of coffee consumption practices in Korea and the complex meanings attached to circumscribed leisure environments for negotiating the advent of "globality"---the global nature of social relationships and interdependencies---and the continuing contradictions of U.S.-Korea relations. Through ethnographic research, I ask: What does the proliferation of transnational designer cafes signify regarding the political, economic, and social restructuring associated with neoliberal globalization in contemporary South Korea? And how does it impact the tensions of ongoing urbanization, the reconfiguration of class and gender divisions, and the reformulation of postcolonial nationalism?;To address these questions, I turn to the Starbucks cafe space and coffee consumptive practices, linking popular film and media texts to more material sites (histories, practices, places, and technologies). In doing so, I explore four dimensions particular to Starbucks Korea: media narratives, the Starbucks business biography, the architectural and physical space of the cafe, and preferred consumption codes; I argue that these narratives and modes of consumption are part of the larger narratives of neoliberal labor ideals. Chapter 1 examines the neoliberal narratives of self understanding and the cultural importation of Starbucks in a South Korean context. Chapter 2 considers the neoliberal logics of labor and how baristas come to know their work and position themselves in the workplace. Chapter 3 then examines a turn to excessive leisure and modes of consumption in neoliberal Korea. Finally, the conclusion looks at coffee consumption and ethical consumerism in the past decade. In this way, the dissertation combines textual, historical, and sociological analyses to investigate (1) the product as global political text and material, and (2) the local Korean elaboration of cafe culture and coffee consumption as simultaneously Korean and global, and the tensions of Starbucks Korea as emblematic of American business. |
