• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.26-48
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• 2010

The current government tries to pursue a series of energy plans and strategies which have been recently established under the banner of 'green growth'. Although there have been several critical comments on the energy policy, the structural background under which the energy policy has been established and implemented has not yet been scrutinized. This paper understands the current government's strategy for 'green growth' and energy policy as a process of neoliberalization. In particular, the energy policy is characterized as industrialization, marketization, technologization, and financialization of energy, which bring about a lot of detailed issues. This kind of 'green growth' strategy is far from the model of sustainable development, and rather seems to be well interpreted in terms of what Harvey calls 'accumulation by dispossession'. As the government's strategy for 'green growth' and energy policy denies the roll of citizens and civil society which would mediate and arbitrate the contradiction between environment preservation and economic growth, and conflicts between market mechanism and state intervention, so alternatives to the 'green growth' strategy should be orientated to a citizen-participating and civil society-led energy policy.

• Land and Housing Review
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.15-22
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• 2013

Over the past three decades, neoliberalism has been pervasive and even normative in reorganizing housing systems, encouraging a decline in low-income housing. However, the way in which neoliberal prescriptions have impacted on housing processes has not necessarily been the same but has rather differed according to the indigenous social, economic, political, and institutional contexts of particular countries. In the case of Japan, neoliberalization has effectively combined with a traditionally residualized public housing to affect housing circumstances surrounding low-income people. This article explores transformations in low-income housing in Japan to demonstrate the importance of specific housing contexts in particular societies, in terms of looking at the impact neoliberalism has had on housing processes.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.263-285
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• 2011

Despite the process of neoliberalization has made a decisive influence on our society as a whole, there seems little interests in neoliberal urbanization and entrepreneurial urban projects promoting it. This study is to see relationships between neolibealization process and recent urbanization and urban policies in terms of entrepreneurial city mediating them. In particular, this paper tries to reconceptualize entrepreneurial city as corresponding to privatization and commodification, financialization, state redistribution, and management and manipulation of crises which Harvey(2005) suggests as four main features of neoliberalization process in general and 'accumulation by dispossession' in particular, and to characterize it in terms of 'creative destruction' and of 'entrepreneurial governance'. As examined in the later part of this paper, recent cases of these entrepreneurial urban projects in S. Korea include volatility of land and housing price in the Capital region and urban regeneration and newtown projects, project for free economic zones construction in Incheon and other 5 regions, project for SOC construction heavily relying on private investment, in particular project financing pursued nationwidely including Daegu, and project of urban cultural marketing to promote capital inflow tacitly as well as to enhance urban imagine explicitly.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.139-155
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• 2018

This study investigates the processes of the "Production of Nature" and the preservation and exploitation of nature in the local festival. The recent discussions in tourism geography address the neoliberalization of nature with its political-ecological interpretation. Yangyang-gun has been one of the main regions that have made efforts to make salmon back to the streams. Also, the Yangyang Salmon Festival was organized to celebrate and symbolize the successful restoration of nature. In fact, however, the festival focuses on the commercialization of salmon. Moreover, it is hard to consider Namdaecheon as the successfully restored ecosystem for salmon. As the returning number of salmon has not significantly increased and the festival itself has not been successful to attract many tourists, the local people show declining interest on the conservation of salmon. Contrast to the catchphrase of the festival to emphasize the conservation of nature and restoration of ecosystem, there are still many hurdles that jeopardize returning of salmon. This controversy leads diverse actors into conflict over the conservation of salmon and Namdaecheon. The players in the dispute encompass local people, local and national governments and international organization. Nature appropriated for ecotourism is selectively defined, used and emphasized by the interests of agencies at multiple scales. The findings of this study show that the concept of "Produced Nature" is more useful than intrinsic or original perspective on nature as long as we try to understand the commercialization of nature that is appropriated for the repertoire of local festival.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.75-96
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• 2013

This paper is to conceptualize the urban social circulation of water from the social constructivism and political ecology, and to analyze the history of development of social circulation of water, that is, the modernization process of water in Daegu. The development of social circulation system of water in Daegu can be divided into 4 stages, that is, the beginning stage of modernization of water mainly during the period of Japanese colonization, the take-off stage from the 1960s to the mid-1980s, the stage of reflexive modernization from the late 1980s to the 1990s, and that of neoliberalization of water since the 2000s. It can be seen that the development of social circulation system of water in Daegu has contributed the increasing urban population and economic development, especially supporting the spatial expansion of the city and the way of modern way of urban life. But the social circulation system of water in Daegu seems to meet with a lot of problems such as relocation of the water intake station, over-equipment of filtration plants, distrust on tap water, inequality of water use, readjustment of water charge, liquid waste from industrial complexes within the urban area, creative destruction of waterfront environment, and privatization of water.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.358-375
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• 2012

Neoliberalizing nature spreads widely across diverse fields and areas. Commodifying water is the most frequent case conflicting with the stance, water as commons. This paper reviews the commodity versus commons debate in other countries leading to the importance of wider perspective considering regional contexts, and then examines the case of Jeju with that regard entirely depending freshwater on underground acquifer. In Jeju, the sale of bottled water by private corporation has been in confrontation with the declaration of water as commons by Jeju government. But, the commodity versus commons conflict over water hinders more important concerns such as the abundant use by tourism related hotels and golf courses, the free largest agricultural use, and the production and sale of bottled water by Jeju government itself. The real focus of concern should be given to the constraints on increasing water rate for tourism businesses, charging fees on agriculture, and the local development imperatives. The dual stance of Jeju government in promoting water as commodity as well as promulgating water as commons seems to be a case adding diversity to the geography of neoliberalizing nature.

• Korean Association of Arts Management
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• no.59
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• pp.33-72
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• 2021

I intended to discuss the new phase of the publicness of museums in a digital environment with the Goole Arts & Culture Project. To this end, I critically examined the instrumental approaches and technological optimism in the application of digital technology to museums, and scrutinized the recent museological issues, particularly the revision or curtailment of the museum's publicness amid the spread of neoliberal policy, which have been omitted within those technological approaches. This is because the meaning of Google Art & Culture can be considered more effectively through an extended theoretical reconstruction. Based on these theoretical discussions, I critically reviewed how the "non-profit," an important concept that defines the publicness of museums, was adopted and utilized as an business strategy by Google. As a result, I wanted to reveal that the neoliberalization of museums, the failure of the government's public function, the crisis of museum's publicness, and Google's "non-profit" strategy have been closely related. Armed with advanced digital technology, the GAC project appropriated the publicness of museums as a useful profit-making model. As such, now the concept of publicness of museums is at a point of more controversial and radical transformation than ever before.