응원봉을 든 대구의 청년들: 참여 양태, 집합행동, 정치적 요구

Abstract

This study analyzes the characteristics and perceptions of youth p'icipants in Daegu’s pro-impeachment “lightstick protests” that emerged after the m'ial law declaration on December 3, 2024. Drawing on two on-site face-to-face surveys conducted on Dongseong-ro—December 14, 2024 (the first wave, N=72) and January 18, 2025 (the second wave, N=110)—it examines who p'icipated, how they joined, why they p'icipated, and what they demanded. The results show that p'icipants were predominantly young women and included diverse occupational groups such as students, job seekers, and young workers, with relatively high proportions of lower-and middle-status respondents in subjective socioeconomic status. They generally leaned progressive and reported comparatively high political efficacy. Mobilization relied less on organized recruitment by p'ies or organizations and more on SNS-based diffusion and loose networks; familiar fandom repertoires—lightsticks, placards, and hashtags—were adapted to the protest setting, lowering p'icipation barriers and facilitating collective gathering. Many p'icipants also evaluated the “lightstick mode” as a legitimate and effective form of protest. P'icipation was driven by perceiving m'ial law as a serious threat to democratic norms and by a civic sense of responsibility to defend democracy, combined with accumulated dissatisfaction with policy failures under the Yoon Suk Yeol government. Beyond demanding impeachment, p'icipants called for transformation of local politics, restoration of democracy, and expansion of political representation. The study empirically demonstrates how youth form political subjectivity through nonconventional p'icipation even under constraints posed by a conservative-dominant regional context.