• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.310-325
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• 2012

Human being has used place names to differentiate one place from another. Place names are the products of collective human cognition in that a place name is chosen when it successfully represents the identity of a place. In addition, place names have been changed by the competition and struggle between social agencies and the political imperatives of hegemonic groups to impose their identity on the places. Recent geographic studies on place names have focused on the social and political processes behind the change of place names. In this vein, the purpose of this study is investigating the debates on the decision of city names in the process of the administrative reorganization in mid 1990s by the lens of political geography. Residents in cities and counties tried to justify their arguments by emphasizing historical backgrounds and popularity of their names. Additionally, economic power and potential were mobilized for the political resources to win over the battle over city names. The result, however, shows that the decision of newly consolidated cities' name was mainly made by the amount of political resources, such as population and number of seats in local assemblies. Several regions tried to use city names to negotiate with counterparts. In sum, the decision of place names is the product of political competitions, and the place name becomes the symbol of territorial identity. Place names have been in the center of disputes in local politics even after the name was decided, which suggest further studies on reasonable solution to mitigate the disputes to be expected when additional reorganization of administrative districts.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.713-737
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• 2016

This study is to review research issues on North Korea and unified territory in terms of topics and approach method in Korean human geography. The conclusion of this paper is as follows. Before 1980's, topics on political geography, such as geopolitics or unified land, were the main stream in research. In 1990's with the end of the cold war and the access to material which was published in North Korea, scope of research was widened especially in geography education. After 2000's with the expansion of cooperation between South and North Korea, the scope of topics were more expanded in all field of human geography, for example, critical geopolitic in political geography, Gaeseong Industrial Complex, Najin-Seonbong region in economic geography, place names, Geumgangsan, North Korean defectors in social and cultural geography. The approach method of toward North Korea is fall into two categories. One is regional geography and the other is the unified land. In the latter approach, topics on the regional structure after reunification or on the life adaptation of defectors in South Korea etc. were studied. After unification of land, new Korean Studiea will be established and human geographers should make ready for this. Before unification, research on the land in north Korea should be proceeded in terms of historical geography.

• 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.38 no.2
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• pp.206-223
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• 2003

Bays and caps represent the physical characteristics of Naepo area in Korea. And reclamation of tidal land presents a clue toward the understanding of regional identities and landscape changes in this area. Reclamation of tidal land in the Garorim bay that is representative of the physical geographies of Naepo area had trended toward 'the diffusion of salt ponds' during Joseon dynasty. Hereafter the Japanese imperialism, the reclamation had tumed to 'the reclamation of arable lands' by drainage. But, at the same time the land use of salt pond that had been the most appropriate strategy of adaptation for the ecological environments of this area has showed a sort of the geographical long-term durability. And the great landlords that had emerged during Japanese imperialism were the Yeom-han(鹽漢, laborers who engaged in salt production) in former times. They as a new local elites have played a leading role in the reclamation of tidal land and the making of regional landscape.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.221-239
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• 2010

The lineage village is a very characteristic form of village in Korea. Although it was known as having established on the base of the Lineage Law, the complexities of political and economical structures played an important role in the process of establishing the village. The continuous political struggles between the scholar officials forced them to abuse the blood ties as well as the academic and regional relation. Using the disorder of land ownership system, the ruling elite made chances to expand the private land ownership, and these became the fiscal background of the formation of the lineage village and the agglomeration. The capital area's lineage villages were used of fiscal background by scholar officials lived in Hanyang. In the reason of political struggle, the initiator came to Osan-ri in late 16th Century. And in early 17th century, with a government dignitary, Shin Kye-Young, and with the reproduction of population, Osan-ri formed a typical lineage village with many clan households in the late of 17th century.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.39 no.6 s.105
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• pp.933-954
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• 2004

This paper considers critically the conceptual development of international environmental security, and to explore some limitations which seem to have made difficult the construction of regional environmental governance among North-East Asian countries. The recently emerging concept of environmental security has turned the traditional or realistic meaning of security to the neo-liberal and the political-economic one. On the basis of a reconsideration of these newly developed meanings of security, this paper has reviewed critically some work which have focused on the concepts of environmental regime and of environmental governance. To formulate a true environmental governance, it is suggested that we need a theoretical analysis on the economic and political contexts and a practical development of civil society. From this point of view, the economic structure of labour division, the political tension and military opposition in the region, and the immaturity and exclusiveness of civil consciousness can be pointed out as some limitations of environmental security to be constructed in the North-East Asian region. A true environmental security in this region requires formation of reciprocal economic relationship, development of regional institutions for political trust among countries, and improvement of interaction between non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

• 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 Society for information Management
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.179-195
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to investigate the implications that GIS(Geographic Information Systems) can have in public library collection selection and service development from a marketing perspective. GIS is a computer system capable of assembling, storing, manipulating, and displaying geographically referenced information. Through the understanding and utilization of GIS, we can collect geographical, transportation, political, legal, demographic, economic, social, cultural, educational, and recreational information of the community. Public libraries can utilize GIS for market research, including customer analysis to select library collection and develop library service based on library users' needs. As a result, public libraries can find a way to make a lasting relationship with users which is the final goal of marketing activities.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.457-463
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• 2012

This study examines the epistemological approach of the economic geography and the approach in the ontology of geography which has been studied based on the region, and thereby aims at the systematization of economic geography. Since 1956, Korean economic geography study has been conducted under the development of studies in developed countries without discussing the uniqueness of the study or the systematization of the research approaches. As a result, the systematization is built after the economic geography is divided into neoclassical economy, geographical political economy, regional structure of the national economy, and local autonomous entity economy on a axis of epistemology and ontology for the systematization of approaches. We should pursue the intellectual change adding the major economic phenomena theories such as the world-system perspective, the regulation theory, network theory, and the institutionalism etc. into the systematization of the economic geography.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.601-623
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• 2014

This paper is to analyze critically policy and discourse of creative economy and creative city. Applying the concept of 'policy transfer' or 'policy mobility', It points out that it may be inevitable for a certain policy or discourse developed in Western society to change its contents and characteristics in its international diffusing process. And then, this paper describes political contexts and process in which the policy and discourse of creative city of a former mayor of Seoul, Oh, Se-Hoon, during the late part of the 2000s, and those of creative economy of the current president, Park, Geun-Hye, have been suggested and pursued, arguing that those policies and discourses, having been distorted and lack of concrete contents, have functioned as a key ruling tool or political rhetoric. In particular, this paper concludes that the policy and discourse of creative economy of the current government would have little positive effect due to excluding intentionally policy of economic democracy and ignoring unintentionally policy of creative city, which seem to have an inherent relationship with that of creative economy.