• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.41 no.4 s.115
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• pp.470-490
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• 2006

The paper critically examines resource mobilization theories, frame theory, and new social movement theories, and proposes studies on the spatiality of the social movements as one potential to mitigate the limitation in these theories. The resource mobilization theories and the frame theory, the strategy-oriented approaches, lack contextual understandings of the origin of social movements. While new social movement theories provide macro-scale analysis and the structural explanations of the origins of social movements, they have covered limited geographical areas. The spatiality of social movements promotes deep understandings of local differences, and contexts in and through which grievances are constructed and collective actions are organized. Physical structures and symbolic representations of places are often created and utilized as social movement strategies. The spatiality of social movements can be a useful conceptual tool to explain the diversity and the dynamics of social movements.