Worth of the Body

Ikigai is a term used to conceptualize the feeling of worth or purpose in an individual. Many times it is referenced when speaking of suicide because of the association between people who have lost their ikigai and people at risk of suicide. In Hansen's piece about Beijing migrants employed in precarious labor, the workers are said to be lacking ikigai due to their work conditions and their precariousness in society. 

These are just a couple of quotes from migrant workers employed in industrial China: 
“I feel much better now compared to how lost I was, because of that aimlessness, I used to feel , was both a kind of self-loathing and cowardice.” ¹
 “Whatever I’ve done, I haven’t received much recognition. What’s more, I look at other people, and they seem  so outstanding while I never accomplish anything.” ¹

A recent concept of worth being explored is how the worth of the body is being extended to the virtual where
financial and social investments are made. ² The area of society where this blurring of the real and the virtual is made most apparent is in the realm of video games. One example of this recent development among youth in East Asia, is the creation of PC Bangs. PC Bangs are defined as "communities of co-presence with the ability of being both virtually and physically present in the ‘here’ and ‘there’. ² This hybrid space between the physical and the virtual is categorized by Hjorth as a 'third space' where what is in the physical co-mingles and interacts with the virtual and vice versa. Another conceptual level is discussed as the 'fourth space' where strangers that have never met in the physical can become intimate. 

One example of how the third and fourth spaces are opening up new ideas of worth is the recent development of "Gold Farming". In short, gold farming is the interplay between virtual and physical precarious labor ². For more about gold farming and virtual physical labor check out this page. As with many social constructs, these new spaces unfortunately open up many new possibilities both good and bad. PC Bangs as mentioned in the article hyperlinked here, lead to the ostracization of outlying individuals and added pressures on youth who attend PC Bangs to excel in their virtual abilities as well as their social abilities in the third space. One extreme example of how the line between the virtual and the real is being blurred by the youth is the story of a player who was killed after the death of a virtual character. 

While gold farming can be categorized as precarious labor due to its instability, use of temporary labor, and many times poor working conditions there are key differences to consider. For example, while both industrial workers and gold farmers work in crammed conditions, doing repetitive tasks for many hours on end, a significant amount of Gold Farmers actually like their job. One employer of gold farmers says that “They get a sense of achievement from it, which is rare in any other sweatshop…the game world can be a space of empowerment and compensation for them"² Workers in the fourth space get paid low wages to do tasks that will earn them massive amounts of virtual money or credit which is then sold by the traders who employ the gold farmers for real cash.²

The sense of empowerment and achievement that gold farmers get from their work is important because it may prove to halt or at least slow down the loss of ikigai experienced by the industrial precarious workforce. In East Asia where social welfare has failed to take root, this new hybrid space of labor can prove to be a powerful tool to give purpose to temporary workers.

1.)Hansen, Anders Sybrandt. -  "Learning the knacks of actually existing capitalism: Young Beijing migrants and the problem of  value." Critique of Anthropology32.4 (2012): 415-434.

2.)Hjorth, Larissa - "Playing at being mobile: Gaming and cute culture in South Korea." Fibreculture journal 8 (2006).