• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.113-138
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• 2014

Despite the growing numbers of regional problems (e.g. conflicts between the state and localities, inter-local conflicts, etc.) associated with the state-led developmental projects, the Korean social sciences have been unable to offer satisfying explanations and solutions to the regional problems. This is mainly because the existing works, which have been taken captured by the assumptions of "methodological nationalism", significantly lack the socio-spatial understandings of the state actions and the relations between the state and localities, thereby seeing the issues of regional development mainly in terms of either the economic efficiency defined at the national scale, or the plan rationality of the national bureaucrats. With this problem orientation in mind, this paper aims to explore the ways in which the state and localities are interacting, conflicting and negotiating with one another through the mediation of the state-led developmental projects. Focusing on the developmental processes of Masan Export Processing Zone from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, it examines the multi-scalar processes through which the state-led industrial complex developmental processes have been influenced by the complex and dynamic interactions among social forces and actors acting at diverse geographical scales (e.g. the global, national, local, urban, etc.). This analysis shows that the regional policies of the Korean developmental state were more heavily influenced by the interactions, contestations, and collaborations among social forces and actors, acting in and through the state, at various geographical scales, rather than by the economic and techno-bureaucratic rationality.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.1-19
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• 2020

Trends toward an influx of new migrants have been pronounced in East Asia through a development we call the third round of migrant incorporation. At the same time, other features of East Asian societies, such as strong levels of ethnic nationalism, have changed little, posing challenges to multiculturalism. In this introduction to this special issue, we review the latest research trends broadly concerning multiculturalism, migrant groups that have received little attention, racism and xenophobia. We first discuss the state of migrant incorporation in East Asia and the limits of multiculturalism in this region, where various features of the developmental state persist. We then introduce research on voices opposing multiculturalism in East Asia. This introduction highlights what is peculiar―and ordinary―about migrant incorporation and the associated challenges in East Asia.

• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.113-171
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• 2017

Science and engineering college students, so-called engineering students, account for nearly half of Korean university students. Existing research on younger generations poses a question of young generation after the financial crisis as a 'genuine' survivalist who carries out 'passionate labor' to pursue 'ordinary life' and 'banal stability'. They are diagnosed as failing to "locate the course of their lives in relation to a larger being that transcends self". But is there a value that can replace the survival value in front of us today, which is possible to be practiced and narrated by the young generation of Korea, especially the engineering students? What value (if any) is not captured by survival value, and what mechanisms and processes can and can easily be used by engineering students? Our research uses interviews conducted at one research-centered science and engineering university in a local metropolitan city, Korea. In conclusion, we emphasize that a transformed version of developmental nationalism, in which individual scientists/engineers pursue their 'authentic' passion and unintentionally contribute to the development of the nation through byproducts of their research, exerts strong influence upon the formation of young engineering students' narratives linking their selfhood and the good.

• 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 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.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.69 no.1
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• pp.103-123
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• 2017

This article examines the existing literature on the intersection of care and migration in Europe and the potential contributions of the Korean case. The paper reviews the three bodies of research: care, migration and their intersections. When defined as social reproductive labour, the concept of care not only captures individual/family level of experiences but it can also be an effective tool to analyse the diversity of the welfare state and the path of its evolution. Furthermore, in the context of globalisation and international migration, the concept of care can help overcome so-called 'the methodological nationalism' in the welfare state research. Accumulated evidence shows that only by applying a transnational perspective to the relationship between such social realities as class, gender and race, can we properly examine the dynamics of care distribution. Existing care-migration nexus research has found a widely observed trend of the 'migrantisation of care' in European welfare states; however, the actual modality of care-migration intersection varies reflecting historical and institutional contexts. This is why care-migration nexus research must go beyond the well-known welfare regime types. The Korean case can expand the geographical coverage and theoretical applicability of the intersection research by including a new welfare state regime type (productivist or developmental welfare states) and new patterns of migration (co-ethnic migration and marriage migration) which were rarely dealt with in this scholarship.

• 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.