Protesting Underground

Set in Seoul, this chapter addresses ableism and the inequality built into infrastructure, particularly toward people with disabilities in South Korean society. It explores the tactics disability rights activists use to protest these injustices. When the ordinary transportation infrastructure—subway and bus stops—are the problem and the site of unequal treatment, it is only logical to set a protest at the very site of injustice. These protests, however, generated controversy due to the essential role that transit infrastructure plays in the day-to-day economy. The authors of this chapter discuss how Korean disability activists from the Solidarity against Disability Discrimination movement counter transportation injustice by protesting on the subway, but they also discuss the physical quality of the built infrastructure, such as station layouts, depth, and convoluted paths, and how the infrastructure’s qualities both caused and shaped the protests.