Just-ish Transition: Rethinking justice in practice in South Korea's coal phase-out

Energy transitions are recognized as disruptive processes that risk producing new socio-economic inequalities, despite the ideal of Just Transition (JT) envisioning fair and inclusive decarbonization. Although scholarship has emphasized desirable outcomes and enabling conditions of JT, it has given insufficient attention to how justice is implemented and experienced on the ground. The present article addresses this gap by asking how the journey toward JT can become unjust. Concentrating on the planned phase-out of the Taean Coal-fired Power Plants in South Korea, the study employs grounded theory to explore the subcontracted workers' lived experiences. The findings advance a phased process in which injustice accumulates and intensifies – Just-ish Transition. It unfolds in three sequential phases dominated by procedural, distributive, and restorative injustice, all underpinned by recognition-based injustice as a foundational driver. These phases are interconnected, as the injustices produced in one stage condition and amplify those in the next. In this sense, Just-ish Transition reveals how institutions intended to ensure fairness can, paradoxically, deepen exclusion when justice is reduced to mere policy goals rather than embedded within the practice itself. The contribution of this research is twofold. First, it develops a framework that traces how different tenets of justice interact and compound over time. Second, it empirically demonstrates that even in a context with extensive institutional mechanisms, JT policies can entrench vulnerability among those without institutional standing. Ultimately, a just destination cannot redeem an unjust journey, underscoring that justice must be inherent to the practice of transition for effective decarbonization. • This study captures how subcontracted workers experience injustice during the coal phase-out. • Just-ish Transition shows that injustice accumulates and intensifies across phases. • Different forms of injustice are interconnected and reinforce one another. • Justice must be embedded in the practice of transition, not reduced to mere policy goals. • Just Transition policies risk aggravating inequality when justice is not substantively experienced in practice.