환경국가는 어떻게 프레카리아트를 배제하는가: 폐기물처리시설 지하화 사례를 중심으로

초록

In the era of the climate crisis, the environmental state faces the historical task of socio-ecological transformation, yet actual policies tend to focus on preserving the lifeworld of the “strategic citizenry” . By combining Hausknost’s theory of the environmental state with Standing’s concept of the precariat, this study analyzes the mechanisms through which the state secures legitimacy by relying on the support of specific groups rather than pursuing fundamental system transformation, while systematically excluding the precariat. The analysis employs a tripartite framework of “institutional exclusion,” “spatial exclusion,” and the “economic displacement of risk,” applied to the case of underground waste treatment facilities in South Korea. The findings reveal that while undergrounding contributed to securing middle-class legitimacy by improving the living environment of local residents, it failed to advance system transformation by leaving the total volume of waste generation unaddressed. In this process, the state institutionally excluded waste treatment workers from the policy design stage, blocked the visibility of their labor through spatial confinement underground, and economically displaced risks onto them through outsourced employment structures. These multi-layered exclusions function as a structural contradiction that reproduces capitalist class hierarchies under the guise of environmental policy, ultimately hindering a genuine ecological transformation. Taking the position that a transition to a green state is conditionally possible through the “reconfiguration of class coalitions,” this study proposes the directions of a just transition and welfare state restructuring.

키워드