Precarity and Performativity in Post-Fordist Japanese Workplace: A Reading of Sayaka Murata’s Convenience Store Woman

The socio-economic phenomenon of post-Fordism strengthened the growing Japanese economy since 1970s. However, economic recession in 1990s led to birth precariat Japan. A country known for permanent employment and long-term stability was replaced by policies that enabled a new class temporary workers. These vulnerable part-time employees, also called freeters, are victims anxiety social pressure. They life insecurity hopelessness. This ontological vulnerability prevalent modern workplaces has profound repercussions on gender relations identity formation attempts resist expose these hegemonic powers shape central theme Sayaka Murata’s deadpan comedy Convenience Store Woman (2018). protagonist Keiko, freeter herself, struggles live up societal expectations marriage, motherhood, stable career. workspace, which novel considers as her safest place despite being forcibly normalised environment, could not hold its illusion long it becomes precarious space crisis. Precarity experienced under post-Fordist capitalism forces institutionalised forms recognition where performances identities regulated constructed ensure survival. textuality workspace parallels world outside it, making convenience store microcosm capitalist after globalisation. With Judith Butler’s studies performativity precariousness, textual analysis novel, authors this paper study how anxiety-ridden living conditions can become foundation alternative troubling categories, thereby transcending narrow scripts rooted exclusion inequality.