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Paper short abstract

Focusing on senior–junior relations in South Korean workplaces, this paper shows how cooperation emerges through hierarchical positioning. Asymmetrical obligations produce relational ambivalence as collaboration, exploitation, and affectivity intertwine under neoliberal conditions.

Paper long abstract

This paper revisits the anthropological question of compatibilities and tensions between cooperation and hierarchy through an examination of South Korean senior–junior (sŏnbae–hubae) relationships. These age-graded, patronage-like ties within institutions such as universities and workplaces are foundational to South Korean social life, functioning as gateways to professional knowledge and opportunities. The relationship is hierarchical yet oriented toward cooperation: seniors command authority and extract labor and deference, juniors repay with loyalty and favors—while both perform mutual care.

Drawing on interviews with Korean professionals, I explore how cooperation between seniors and juniors must be actively accomplished, even as seniors automatically occupy positions of hierarchical authority—a mechanical effect of entering an institution earlier. This cooperation is indispensable to both parties. Seniors depend on juniors for task execution and are responsible for them to their own superiors, while juniors depend on seniors to learn institutional expectations and access opportunities. Yet within this mutual dependence, seniors have considerable latitude to extract labor and deference, while juniors have limited recourse against exploitation; the boundary between cooperation and coerced coordination is blurred, as institutional positions rather than individual intentions organize interaction.

This historically sedimented system increasingly collides with the egalitarian expectations of Korean youth raised in a liberal democracy who must navigate competitive, individualizing neoliberal environments while remaining bound to non-voluntary hierarchical obligations. By examining this extreme case, the paper contributes to debates on cooperation in polarized contexts, showing how cooperation emerges as asymmetrical reciprocity that enables coordination, reproduces hierarchy, and sustains possibilities for mutual care across cohorts.