Political civic tech in South Korea and civic hackers' rearticulation of digital citizenship

This study, based on ethnographic fieldwork in Seoul, South Korea, examines the emergence of political civic tech - adversarial initiatives led by civic hackers in response to socioeconomic inequalities and political unrest in the 2010s. Drawing on citizenship studies, media studies on civic engagement, and critical perspectives on digital citizenship, it explores how Korean civic hackers construct and perform new techno-civic identities that contest predefined roles within existing power structures. I argue that political civic tech in Korea reveals the democratic potential of civic technology by challenging dominant civic identities and reshaping the contours of political participation. This study calls for a reimagined approach to civic tech in Asia - one in which grassroots actors reinterpret the intersection of technology and citizenship within distinct historical and social contexts to envision a more equitable digital democracy.