Silhouette Representation, Field Activity and Organized Cooperation：Taiwan’s Contemporary Labor Writing（2008—2018）

• Main Authors: Chang-Hong Lu, 呂長紘
• Other Authors: 張俐璇
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2019
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/vr96mk

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 台灣文學研究所 === 107 === Critics have called "labor literature" after the lifting of martial law a "waning period" of labor literature, as the number of works has not flourished as before. However, this touches upon the problem of defining "labor literature". Labor texts, especially after the 2008 financial crisis, are no longer very "literary", and are instead works that use anthropological, journalistic, and even non-fiction ways of writing. How should we consider this kind of "writing"? This thesis proposes that "labor writing" tries to include labor texts from 2008 to 2018. The large number of labor texts published in the last ten years in particular, what kind of problems of their time do they reflect? And in what form do they respond? This thesis believes that the increase of labor writing between 2008 and 2018 has to do with laborers'' memories being forgotten by History, as well as the deterioration of the work environment. Taiwanese people''s feelings of relative deprivation have gotten stronger after the 2008 financial crisis in particular. This thesis uses the perspectives of "silhouette representation", "field activity", and "organized cooperation" to discuss how "labor writing" in the years between 2008 and 2018 responds to contemporary laborers'' problems. The section on "silhouette representation" uses the three texts Working Hard, Weaving, and Island of Showers as cases to point out that the figure of the laborer represented in the texts is a reaction to the disenfranchised people''s memories being drowned out by History. The section on "field activity" takes Us, Silent Workers, and Working People as examples to point out that the three texts, through different fields, show the work experience, sentimental culture, and work problems of "people". The last section on "organized cooperation" uses the Taiwan Literature Award for Migrants, Blood and Tears of the Fishing Grounds, and I Don''t Have Any Time Anymore Now as examples to show how these works, through "organization", write about problems of work rights and work hours. By discussing "labor writing" in the years between 2008 and 2018, this thesis hopes to discover the various problems faced by laborers today in the field of work, and hopes through this research to restore through words the laborer''s life experience. Compared to traditional "labor literature", "labor writing" is more capable of demonstrating the importance of laborers'' problems today, and to reveal a survival attitude of laborers as "people".