• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.42 no.2 s.119
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• pp.196-217
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• 2007

During the last decade, Los Angeles Koreatown experienced unprecedented changes transforming it from an immigrant ethnic enclave into a transnational economic space. Alongside of the city government's redevelopment plans and local Korean Americans' grass-root efforts to regenerate Koreatown, transnational Korean actors have aggressively invested in property as well as business sectors. However, despite these multi-scaled geographic transitions, Koreatown remains one of the poorest and most crime-infested inner-city communities in the City of Los Angeles. This paper, based on a 'place-based' bottom-up approach, investigates contradictory geographies of Koreatown in which multi-scaled network of hegemonic transnational, urban and local development actors has developed representational, unlived economies. This research points out that the recent urban regeneration of Koreatown has not only excluded but also exploited local community members such as transnational Korean/Latino workers in the area. This paper conclusively suggests that the sustainable future of Koreatown's development would stem from place-based community consciousness that crisscrosses racial and ethnic boundaries.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.20 no.10
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• pp.177-189
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• 2020

To newly discover the placeness of Xita Koreatown in Shenyang, this study establishes the conceptual structure of urban inclusivity based on the actor-network theory and the main discourse of inclusive cities. It then applies a framework to the relevant space for analysis. We conduct the case study by first identifying a historical timeline by dividing the age from the founding of New China to the present into sprouting and developing stages of Xita Koreatown, extracting major actors out of time, and finally creating a network graph for each of the six periods representing changes in the region. Throughout this process, we not only analyze the aspect of transition in the urban inclusivity of Xita Koreatown but also prospect the feasibility of an inclusive city for the area. The results of this study are as follows. First, the number and type of actors constituting Xita Koreatown have constantly increased significantly since the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and South Korea. The related actor-networks have also continued to expand in all indicators of urban inclusivity. Secondly, the agency of human actors such as Korean-Chinese, locals, and both South and North Koreans, representing the specificity of Xita Koreatown, has continuously improved. Lastly, due to the increase of cultural exchanges and related policy actors, the actor-network in this region has achieved an unprecedented leap forward. In conclusion, the urban inclusivity of Xita Koreatown in Shenyang shows significant growth in quality, with expectations of further improvement.

• SUVANNABHUMI
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.39-80
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• 2024

Guided by the prism of cultural studies, this paper takes a look at the Manila Korea Town in Malate, Manila. The location, Manila Korea Town, figures as the paper's object of study by exploring, theorizing, and reflecting on its presence and location within the horizon of the signifying powers of Korea-Philippine relations in the contemporary period. With the subject position of this essay, the paper theorizes by responding to the following questions: How does the meaning-making of South Korea fare with other Koreatowns in the world from the scale of Koreatown in Manila? Subsequently, what happens to a place when a global cultural phenomenon evolves into a form of placemaking in a different nation and territory? As Koreatown finally grounds itself in the anarchic lifeworld of Manila, what does this historical development in our urban lives reveal about our contemporary times? Responding to this set of questions led this paper to foreground the idea of a modular imagined community within a four-part discussion. The body of the essay begins by theorizing on the concept that this paper proposes, modular imagined community, and such a concept work draws from the theories of nationalism by Benedict Anderson and Partha Chatterjee. Subsequently, the antinomy between Anderson and Chatterjee is pursued by looking at the history of such a place, and through this step, the paper unravels the character of the place of Manila Korea Town, which explains the conditions of possibility of such social and communitarian formation. Yet as the public is caught by the presence of such development especially at the heart of Manila, the paper expands the scale and viewpoint by shining light on the globality of South Korea in relation to the Philippines. Lastly, this paper closes with a discussion on the food culture facilitated by this recent development, which also pushes us to imagine its potential, especially in light of the critique raised against South Korea and the popular culture associated with this phenomenon.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.40 no.5 s.110
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• pp.473-490
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• 2005

The term hybridity has recently emerged as one of the most popularized leitmotivs in contemporary diasporic and transnational problematics on migrants' nomadic experiences. Especially, in postcolonial politics, hybridity is argued to provide a critical 'third space' on which to challenge discursive boundaries and redescribe power-embedded history However, this paper suggests that the hybrid subject position can be easily articulated in producing new cultural discourse and empowering hegemonic subjects in certain spates. Based on distinguishing the intentional, conscious hybridity from the organic, lived hybridity, this research Intends to investigate the Janus-faced, double-edged nature of the postcolonial politics of hybridity in the case of Los Angeles Koreatown. First, I discuss how a place of organic hybridity in Koreatown can lead to challenging invented and depoliticized ethnicity. At the second half of this paper, 1 focus on understanding the ways in which new Korean American professionals and elites employ the discourse of '1.5 generation' as an intentional hybridity for empowering their own political position at a local scale. I conclusively suggest that hybridity should be a deconstructive strategy to unlearn dominant socio-spatial boundaries rather than bring about the third space as a reterritorialized political position.