• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.287-306
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• 2017

Since the 1990s, political geographers have focused on the study of the process of border construction. They have shifted from the old morphological and functional approaches to boundary that have focused on the types and functions of boundaries. Recent scholarship on border studies understand boundaries and the border regions as entities with overlapping and competing relationships not as manifestation of territoriality. There has been the emphasis on the multidimensional actors and the historical and cultural legacies inherent in the border region as well. Based on these recent discussions, this study examines how the border region has been constructed by various actors and strategies in Dandong China, the border city between North Korea and China. Several sanctions including UN Security Council have been resolved and implemented in accordance with North Korea's nuclear and missile development, which is a relevant example to examine the "border as relationships" in which strategies of various actors are competing. In addition, this paper has a significance as a case study on the construction process of border and the characteristics of its materiality, which is a way to overcome the limitation of discourse-oriented critical geopolitical research.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.348-365
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• 2013

This paper aims to examine the complexities of the state-nature relations in Korea by emphasizing the complex processes of interactions between the state and nature. In doing so, it relies on the literature of "political ecology of state-nature" which problematizes the conventional modernist views on nature assuming the dualistic separation between the state and nature. First, we critically review the existing Korean literature on the state-nature relation (e.g., the ecologism, the metabolic rift theory, the social construction of the nature, the green state thesis, etc.) and argue that these studies significantly lack the recognition of the interactions between the state and nature. Second, we discuss the possibilities of seeing the state-nature relations from the perspective of political ecology as an alternative approach to the state-nature relation. Last, we conclude that the political ecology approach to the state-nature can deepen our understandings of the Korean capitalist development.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.613-632
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• 2016

The recent diagnosis of the Anthropocene challenges public understanding of nature as a pure and singular entity removed from society, as the diagnosis confirms the earth-changing force of humans. In geography, the nature-society divide has been critically interrogated long before the diagnosis of the Anthropocene, developing several ways of theorizing nature-society relations. This paper introduces a new frontier for such theoretical endeavors: more-than-human geography. Inspired by the material and performative turn in geography and the social sciences around the 2000s, more-than-human geographers have sought to re-engage with the livingness of the world in the study of nature-society relations. Drawing on actor-network theory, non-representational theory (NRT) and vitalism, they have developed innovative ways of thinking about and relating to nature through the key concepts of 'nonhuman agency' and 'affect'. While more-than-human geography has been extensively debated and developed in recent Euro-American scholarship on cultural and economic geography, it has so far received limited attention in Korean geographical studies on nature. This paper aims to address this gap by discussing the key concepts and seminal work of more-than-human geography. I first outline four theoretical strands through which nature-society relations are perceived in geography. I then offer an overview of more-than-human geography, discussing its theoretical foundations and considering ontologies, epistemologies, politics and ethics associated with nature-society relations. Then, I compare more-than-human geography with political ecology, which is the mainstream critical approach in contemporary environmental social sciences. I would argue that more-than-human geography further challenges and develops political ecology through its heightened attention to the affective capacity of nonhumans and the methodological ethos of doing a careful political ecology. I conclude by reflecting on the implications of more-than-human geography for Korean studies on nature-society relations.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.139-159
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• 2014

This study problematizes the dominance of developmental state theory and its negative influences in the field of Korean studies, in particular, dealing with the industrialization during the developmental era, 1960s~70s. As is generally known, the theory has been in a position of unchallenged authority on the industrialization experience of East Asian countries, including South Korea. However, at the same time, it has also misled us into overlooking strategic relations that had articulated the state forms at multiple scales. This study aims to reconstruct the historical contexts by the theorizing prompted by recent work on state space. I shed light on the multiscalar strategic relations that had shaped the Ulsan refinery plant as a representative state space of the South Korean industrialization during two decades after liberation. Specifically, the study illustrates the features and roles of Cold War networks and multiscalar agnets such as Nam Goong-Yeon. By identifying the plant as a result of sequential articulations between Ulsan and other scales, this study concludes by suggesting to reframing the strategic relational spaces, beyond the view of methodological nationalism, in the perspective of multiscalar approach.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.297-309
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• 2012

This study examines how East Asia is represented in US World Geography textbooks and what kind of cultural and political epistemological frameworks are embedded in those representation focused on China and Japan. For this, four World Geography textbooks that widely used in public middle school throughout the State of Connecticut are selected as the major units of analysis and analyzed using content analysis. The results are as follows. First, The textbooks have the cultural epistemological framework that East Asia are portrayed not only as homegenous and static world but also as exotic world whose mode of life is quite different from that the West. Second, China are represented as having more traditional and negative images, whereas Japan are portrayed as receiving more modern and positive images in the textbooks. This difference is caused by the relationship between the U.S. and them and imply that the epistemological framework on East Asia of American can change according to the relationship between the U.S. and East Asia. Third, the textbooks seem to be dominated by colonialism epistemological framework that emphasize hierarchical order between the U.S. and East Asia and omit East Asian countries' contribution to global cultures and economies as political epistemological framework. These findings suggest the need to investigate the epistemological frameworks underlying World Geography textbooks used Korean classroom about neighbor Asia or non-Western societies.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.178-199
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• 2014

Changwon Industrial Complex is commonly framed as the best example of strong initiative of the Korean developmental state. And this explanation has been given in the theoretical frame of 'neo-Weberian accounts' i.e., strongly 'national-territorial' and state-centric terms of the predominant. I argue that a geopolitical economy approach focusing on the historical background of the development of Changwon Industrial Complex will shed light on crucial sociospatial dimensions of the Korean developmental state's industrial complex success. I examine, in particular, the multi-scalar processes through which the changes of the industrial complex building plans for the promotion of machine industry in 1960's have been influenced by the complex and dynamic interactions among social actors acting at diverse geographical scales. I show that the formation of the industrial complex in Korea was more heavily influenced by the interactions, contestations, and collaborations among social actors, acting in and through the state, rather than by the state initiative.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.1-27
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• 2014

This paper aims at exploring the multi-scalar processes through which the Gumi Industrial Complex was developed in the late 1960s and the early 1970s. Existing studies, influenced by the "Developmental State Thesis", tend to see the industrialization processes of South Korea either by focusing on the socio-politico-economic processes at the national scale or in terms of the plan rationality of the national bureaucrats. This paper, however, denies this perspective on the basis of the strategic relational approach to the state and the multi-scalar perspective. In particular, it argues that the state actions for national industrialization have been the outcome of complex interactions, conflicts and negotiations among social forces, acting in and through the state, and at diverse geographical scales. This paper attempts to empirically prove this argument on the basis of a case study on the construction processes of Gumi Industrial Complex. The development of Gumi Industrial Complex cannot be solely explained in terms of either the plan rationality of the national bureaucrats or the political motivation related to the fact that Gumi was the hometown of President Park Jung-Hee. This paper argues that the development of Gumi Industrial Complex was heavily influenced by the role of the following actors; place-dependent local actors in Gumi and the multi-scalar agents, such as the Korean-Japanese businessmen and the national parliament members elected in the Gumi electoral district.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.420-437
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• 1994

The starting point of the research is the relation between capital restructuring and urban restructuring. The economic restructuring, which has been caused by the economic crisis in the early 1970s in the United States has brought a spatial restructuring at different geographic scales. The degree of the success of urban restructuring is contingent to the local economic and political environments. The local contingent factor such as local politics should not be neglected for investigating the restructuring process. Through the case study of Chicago, the research provides two inconsistencies in applying the structural approach to the local level: first, the lack of the theoretical link between crisis and restructuring; and second, the crucial importance of local politics in shaping urban development.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.37-59
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• 2012

Korean studies are in crisis because they have fallen prey to the territorial trap associated with methodological territorialism and methodological nationalism. In order to overcome this situation, this paper suggests the studies on Korea to be more active in accepting the socio-spatial perspective that emphasize the inseparability of society and space. In particular, paying special attention to the 4 important dimensions of socio-spatial relations, such as place, territory, network and scale, it examines the ways in which these 4 dimensions are overlapped, interconnected and dynamically interacting with one another from the perspective of "multi-scalar networked territoriality". In conclusion, I argue that the Korean studies need to understand the variegated and multi-scalar nature of Korea, a place, which is constituted through complex interactions among diverse political, social, economic and cultural forces and processes that operate in various places and at diverse geographical scales.those days, such as agriculture, crops, and transportation of goods. Fifth, the bibliography and citations explaining all instances reveal that China (Qing) is a great civilization of the advanced world and that the scholarship of Joseon relied on and accepted it. Sixth, except for horse raising and management, farming implements for rice transplantation, sericulture, and natural dying of cloth, most of the topics are useful even today. In short, theres is a profound aspect to the content that makes it possible to estimate the "geographical thinking". In general, the focus of the content of this book directly linked to the practical agricultural economy of the common people.