• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.82-103
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• 2007

Neoliberalism can be seen as a path-dependent, hybrid and contradictory project that operates actually (not just ideologically) through intervention of the state that has been not weakened in its strength but different in its strategies, especially through neoliberal policies of remaking urban space. This paper seeks to characterize the development of neoliberalism and urban policies in S. Korea, by examining the trajectory of neoliberalism generated in its contextually specific way since the late 1980s, by illuminating the intersection between new neoliberal programs and the existing developmentalism of the state and changes in spatial policy with its effects, which can be divided into two phases: the first from the late 1980s to the economic crisis in 1997, and the second from the crisis to the present. This paper finally identifies several paths in which the state and the market would be interrelated, and argues that the vision of national development and spatial policy should be welfare(i.e. human)-oriented, not industry(i.e. capital)-oriented.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.42 no.2 s.119
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• pp.218-242
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• 2007

This paper is to consider the developmental process of Korean geography on the context of socio-spatial transformations of Korea, and then to suggest briefly its alternative visions. The development of knowledge including geography seems to be made under imperatives of social functions and structure in a given period, and knowledge in turn gives power for a further development of society. Modem geography in Korea has progressed on the context of capitalist development of Korean society which can be divided into two phases, that is, the period of developmentalism and that of neoliberalism. Korean geography has been developed under influence of ideologies of developmentalism and neoliberalism, and in turn has made some contributions to socio-spatial policies. Korean geography in the future, it can be suggested, should go beyond both developmentalism and neoliberalism, and put socio-spatial welfare, civil society or community, and environmental justice into its central issues.