Half a cenury of the rural geography in Korea(1945-1995):review and prospect

촌락지리학 50년(1945-1995)의 회고와 전망

The Korean Geographical Society was founded in 1945, when Korea was liberated from the Japanese rule. And The Journal of the Korean Geography activated academic studies of geography by publishing research papers in it. Professor Kang, Dae-Hyun wrote the first two specialized papers of rural geography in 1966: " Flood Plain Settlements on the Han River" and "The Location and Form of the Dispersed Villages around Dae-Cwan-Ryung". The early studies of rural geography were not based on serious academic foundations, such as the adjustment of theoretical notions and a good grasp of subjects. After choosing subjects that came to hand without academic consideration. they simply enumerated generalized items of the results of the field work investigation such as the location the landscape and the process of formation of the settlements. In the 1970s and 1980s, however, rural settlement studies progressed remarkably in Korea. More than 80% of 318 dissertations, theses, or papers collected for this review were written in the late 1980s, and the subjects and methodology became diversified. As may be expected, recent studies are found very systematic and problem-solving in the various fields - contexual understanding spatial structure, the development of clan villages according to the socialization process, the effects of rural-out migration on the change of villages etc. Such a trend can be understood as a reaction to the circumstances under which, as the Western society already experienced, rural villages become washed out by the waves of industralization and urbanization and hardly continue to exist. In this paper, geographical studies of rural settlement which have been carried out in Korea last fifty years will be reviewed under the four headings on the studies related to a) farming villages; b) fishing villages; c) mountain villages: and d) special function villages. Studies of farming villages and related ones are very diverse. The results of the studies carried out last fifty years can be classified into sixteen subjects. Just as, in the West, studies of rural settlement have been mainly concerned with farming villages since rural geography came into being, so, in Korea, they have been centred on farming villages. It is a natural result considering the history of human life. Even in Korea, however the rural settlement is no more an isolated life space which keeps unique traditions of old life style, but it begins to form a dynamic life space connected to big cities by heavy traffic. Because the modern farming villages of Korea have an undetachable connection with the cities, special methodology to solve new problems has been posed in the studies of rural settlement. Many scholars have produced a lot of studies of farming villages, and three of them are prominent: Oh. Hong-Seok, Choi, Ki-Yeop, and Lee, Moon-Jong. Oh, Hong-Seok is a versatile and hard-working scholar who has published more papers than anyone else in the various fields of rural geography such as farming villages, fishing villages, mountain villages, and reclamation villages. And he has expanded his concerns to environment issues in recent years. Choi, Ki-Yeop has maintained that the prototype of Korean rural villages is clan villages continuing to write a series of good papers in which he pursues their regionalizion in the process of socialization. Lee, Moon-Jong divides the spatial organization of side settlement, sahachon (settlement near the temple), religion settlement, orchard settlement, settlement near the foreign military camp, displaced people's settlement. Chung Gam Lok settlement, etc. Though The Korean Geographical Society has half a century's history, academic activties in the field of rural settlement have been performed no more than thirty years. We cannot help saying that it is admirable that in such a rather short time we have five academical schools of the rural geography in Korea. geography in Korea.

우리나라 촌락지리학의 전문적 연구는 1960년대 중반부터 이루어졌다고 할 수 있 다. 그러나 초창기의 촌락연구는 주제에 대한 개념정리나 이론의 정립, 문제의식의 파악과 같은 학문적 바탕위에서 이루어진 것이 아니라 그 대상을 즉물적.선호적으로 선정하고 실 지답사를 통해 교과서적 항목에 따라 촌락의 입지, 형성과정, 경관형태 등을 나열적으로 다 루는 것이 일반적인 경향이었다. 그러나 국내 지리학계의 촌락연구는 70년대를 지나 80년대 로 접어든 이후부터 괄목할 만한 연구업적을 쌓아 오고 있다. 현재까지 이룩된 연구업적의 약 80%이상이 80년대 후반 이후에 이루어진 것이며 그 내용과 추구하는 방법도 다양해지고 있다. 이들을 주제별로 볼때 농촌경관에 대한 학리적 연구, 공간구조의 파악, 동족촌의 형성 과 그들의 사회화 과정에 의한 지역적 전계, 그리고 농촌인구의 도시지향이동이 촌락의 변 형에 미친 영향 및 그에 대한 대책등 농촌문제.농촌계발 등에 이르기까지 보다 실용적이고 체계적인 연구가 이루어지고 있는 것이다. 이러한 흐름은 이미 서구사회가 경험하였듯이 공 업화.도시화 물결에 가리워져 촌락은 그 존재기반조차 존속하기 어려웠던 그간의 상황에 대한 반작용에서는 당연한 문제의식이라고도 해석할 수 있다. 대한지리학회 창립의 역사가 반세기의 역사라고는 하지만, 촌락지리분야의 전문적 학술활동은 불과 30년의 역사에 지나 지 않는 실정속에서도 후술하는 바와 같이 이 분야에서 5개의 $\ulcorner$ 학맥$\lrcorner$이 형성되어 있다는 것은 최근 우리나라 경제발전 못지 않는 학문상의 성과라고 간주할 수 있다. 본 고에서는 그 동안의 연구내용을 \circled1 농촌및 그와 관련한 연구, \circled2 어촌및 그와 관련한 연구, \circled3 산촌및 그와 관련한 연구, \circled4 특수기능촌락으로 나누어서 그 동안의 연구성과와 동향에 대하여 회 고해 보고 앞으로의 전망에 대하여 조망해 보고자 한다.