ABSTRACT This paper attempts to understand the process whereby female janitorial workers in South Korea became workers and their ensuing struggles in dealing with varied social changes. In this paper, I explore the diverse meanings implied by the adaptations they made in their lives and by the multiple identities they undertook as workers, women, housewives, and daughters-in-law. Based on extensive participant observation and interviews with women janitors in University A, I collected life histories and sought to locate workers’ micro-level personal experiences within larger social events that may have served as turning points in their social lives. I also investigated the ways in which their identities combined with their lived experiences of urban migration, neo-liberalization and unionization. Belonging to a lower class in South Korean society, women janitorial workers live with multiple identities as they are also members of their families and have several related duties and obligations.

中文翻译：

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谦逊的白色围裙、可耻的蓝色制服和赋予权力的红色工会背心：韩国的女清洁工

摘要 本文试图了解韩国女清洁工成为工人的过程，以及她们在应对各种社会变化时的挣扎。在这篇论文中，我探讨了她们在生活中所做的适应以及她们作为工人、妇女、家庭主妇和儿媳的多重身份所隐含的不同含义。基于广泛的参与观察和对 A 大学女清洁工的采访，我收集了生活史，并试图在可能成为他们社会生活转折点的更大社会事件中找到工人的微观个人经历。我还调查了他们的身份与城市迁移、新自由化和工会化的生活经历相结合的方式。属于韩国社会的下层，