• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.106 no.4
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• pp.487-496
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• 2017

The marketization in North Korea is spreading rapidly. This study proposes forest rehabilitation strategy for North Korea in light of their major shift toward market economy. This current trend of marketization in North Korea is now affecting the forest sector, especially the way the residents utilize small forest land. For analyzing the influence of marketization on forest management in North Korea, we reviewed the official documents issued by North Korea and related materials of North Korean marketization. The government of Kim Jong Eun has set up policies and systems regarding the spread of marketization, such as guaranteeing individuals a right to dispose certain products on their own and establishing a special economic zone to attract foreign investments. In the forestry sector, the North Korean government has been trying to fully implement its forest restoration plan by carrying out measures like re-claiming of sloping lands that had been previously used by residents. However, as marketization progresses, it is expected that there lies much difficulty in government-led massive mobilization for forest restoration due to the increase of illegal logging to meet high demand for timber, illegal firewood harvesting, collecting non-timber products for livelihoods and illegal crop cultivation to sell in the market. Therefore, South Korea's support for forest restoration should also consider the recent marketization phenomenon in North Korea. It is necessary to formulate strategic measures such as conducting joint commercialization project on agroforestry management using cooperative farming unit, helping to improve income source from small forest lands, and to activate a comprehensive mountain village special economic zone by utilizing forest business. We do hope that our proposed forest rehabilitation strategy in this paper regarding the changes in North Korea's marketization and forest policy can give a meaningful suggestion on supporting forest restoration in North Korea in an effective way.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.381-404
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• 2019

The paper aims to identify how North Korean various economic agents respond to the economic crisis in North Korea, and how these multiple practices are entangled with its spatiality by through the questionnaire survey and in-depth interview targeted at North Korean refugees. The paper argues that it needs to examine the marketization in North Korea in terms of the domesticating recently debated in economic geography. In this perspective, the marketization in North Korea could be explained not as a grand project 'out there' with hegemonic power, but as various economic agents within their space are constantly (re)constructed through everyday life practices. Economic agents' responses to economic crisis, economic rupture, and economic marginalization could be identified in terms of articulation between economic and non-economic factors. More specifically, the paper emphasizes everyday life responses are over-determined by their economic and non-economic factors and its effectiveness is differentiated by their power relations.

• International Area Studies Review
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.71-96
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• 2017

This study analyzes the process of overcoming the impoverishment due to the failure of North Korea planned economy through marketization. Recognizing the economic policy presented by the convergence of market and planned economy system as a economy system and focusing on the 7.1 Economic Management Measures and the 6.28 New Economic Management Measures. The marketization is classified the indigenous marketization (1990-2001), the marketization focusing on central distribution (2002-2011), the marketization focusing on production (2012-2017). The major events, the economic circular structure and the economic behavior were analyzed. Results showed as following: First, through the process of marketization starting from the expansion of farmers' market and the marketization focusing on distribution, the marketization focusing on production to the marketization focusing on finance. And as the evolution of it continues, to some extent a poverty has been overcomed. Second, corporate institutions, agricultural institutions, financial institutions and progress in becoming a market economy direction. A series of privatization starting from small one to large-scale one have been progressing. Third, in order to overcome the impoverishment completely. Through foreign investment the industrialization covering a wide range of industries are urgently needed, Domestic agricultural reform, enterprise reform, price reform, financial reform, financial reform, trade and direct investment, reform, reform, distribution, etc are needed. The economic reforms across almost all sectors are needed to be combined in a global economy Expanding employment, the acquisition of foreign currencies and the acquisition of technology in the process should also be realized. The direction of change of this series of economic structures has turned Public sector and centralized into Private sector and Decentralization.

• SUVANNABHUMI
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.149-180
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• 2023

This article explores religious responses to significant cultural and social change in a northern Vietnamese delta village from 1996 to 2008-the second decade after de-collectivization. Drawing upon extensive fieldwork in both the village and surrounding religious networks, the article teases out the meanings of the new religious movements for northern rural people in the new era of market economy; the symbols, language, and metaphoric resources people used in response to their uncertainty and mistrust of the new social landscape; and the unintended consequences of rapid societal development such as marginalization, tensions, and social disintegration. The article argues that as in milleniarism elsewhere, new religious movements in northern rural Vietnam embody unorthodox syncretism between world religious and local traditions, thus linking past, present, and future. However, when drawing upon a common reservoir of memories and experiences to cope with risks and challenges of the new market world, local people not only drew on the power and imperial metaphor of deities in their traditional religion and belief, but became more creative to recuperate meanings, standards, and symbols from revolutionary discourse to reorient themselves, and overcome alienation and marginalization.