• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.287-306
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• 2017

Since the 1990s, political geographers have focused on the study of the process of border construction. They have shifted from the old morphological and functional approaches to boundary that have focused on the types and functions of boundaries. Recent scholarship on border studies understand boundaries and the border regions as entities with overlapping and competing relationships not as manifestation of territoriality. There has been the emphasis on the multidimensional actors and the historical and cultural legacies inherent in the border region as well. Based on these recent discussions, this study examines how the border region has been constructed by various actors and strategies in Dandong China, the border city between North Korea and China. Several sanctions including UN Security Council have been resolved and implemented in accordance with North Korea's nuclear and missile development, which is a relevant example to examine the "border as relationships" in which strategies of various actors are competing. In addition, this paper has a significance as a case study on the construction process of border and the characteristics of its materiality, which is a way to overcome the limitation of discourse-oriented critical geopolitical research.

• Acta Via Serica
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.131-148
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• 2022

While much has been written about Imperial Japan's encounter with geopolitics and developing ideas about Geography as a political and cultural discipline, little if anything has been written about relational and research Geographies between Japan and Silk Roads both ancient and modern. Memories of the ancient Silk Road were revivified in the late 19^th century in tandem with the Great Game of European nations, as Japan modernized and sought new places and influence globally following the Meiji restoration. Imperial Japan thus sought to conquer and co-opt spaces imagined to be part of or influenced by the ancient Silk Road and any modern manifestation of it. This paper explores a particular process in that co-option and appropriation, research collaboration between institutions of the Empire. In particular it considers the exploration of Mengjiang/Inner Mongolia after its conquest in 1939/1940, by a collaborative team of Korean and Japanese Geographers, led by Professor Tada Fumio. This paper considers the making knowable of spaces imagined to be on the ancient Silk Road in the Imperial period, and the projecting of the imperatives of the Empire back into Silk Road history, at the same time as such territory was being made anew. This paper also casts new light on the relational and collaborative processes of academic exchange, specifically in the field of Geography, between Korean and Japanese academics during the Korean colonial period.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.912-930
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• 2016

This paper suggests to bring the idea of social construction of nature or social nature discussed in social science including geography to geographical and environmental education for breaking traditional divide of people(or society) and nature. And this paper analyzed relationship between people and nature, meaning of environment and the concepts of social nature represented in the geography curriculum and textbook of England, Australia and Korea. Recently in terms of focusing disciplines or education on integration or convergence, introduction of social nature in teaching and learning geography and environment has an important implication. With rapid growth of capitalism, nature is constructed socially by the political, economical, social and cultural practice. Thus geography education reduces the distance between human geography and physical geography and needs to focus on exploring not just the relationship between people and nature but social construction of nature. Another implication of the introduction of social nature in teaching and learning geography and environment is that students can develop the relational sensitivity about the relationship people and nature or people and place.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.51 no.3
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• pp.311-326
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• 2016

Assemblage has become a popular concept in modern socio-spatial theories with relational and material turns. This article investigates the concept of assemblage focusing on Deleuze and Guattari. By comparing similar concepts such as Foucault's apparatus and Actor-Network Theory, this article demonstrates that assemblage emphasizes not only deterritorialization but also (re)territorialization, and that the exteriality of relations is a critical aspect that differentiate assemblage from other relational spatial concepts. Assemblage can highlight the value of empiricism as an analytical tool, and be open to new spatial imaginations as well as multiple existences and possiblities of alternative political projects and practices.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.51 no.6
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• pp.819-836
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• 2016

The development paradigm based on modernization theory and economic growth since the WWII reached an impasse in the 1980s. As an alternative, the new perspective on development as a whole social development beyond economic growth has emerged, and culture as an important method for as well as a approach to development has been emphasized. Post-development theories destruct the European development concept and suggest alternative developments emphasizing culture restoration, endogenous growth, diversity, and neopopulist developments movement emphasize community, gender, ownership, and participation. International Organizations such as UNESCO have also examined and developed the relations between culture and development. Although different from that of the past development paradigm, acknowledging other cultures, however, this elaborated concept of culture has some limitations and need to be reconceptualized through applying the geographical concept of 'relational place.' The concept of relational place can help recognize internal diversity within culture and community and link them to a broader economic and political contexts.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.618-630
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• 2015

This study is to try to find citizenship needed in the age of glocalization and its implication for geography education. With formation of nation-state after modern, the rights and duties are applied to members of a state in a given territory. But Although states grant de jure citizenship, identity as a citizen is increasingly seen as something that is gained beyond and below the state. Citizenship might be conceived as relational rather than absolute, something that is constituted by its connections or network with different people and places rather than something defined by the borders of the nation-state. New space of citizenship has multiple dimension, and is fluid, mobile, multidimensional, transnational, negotiative. Citizenship operates in an increasingly complex web of overlapping spaces, and is reconceptualized as multiple citizenship based on multiscale. Citizenship should now be thought of as multi-level, reflecting individuals simultaneous membership of political communities at a variety of spatial scales and perhaps of non-territorial social groups. Thus, Citizenship education through geography should focus more on interconnected and layered multiple citizenship than bounded national citizenship.

• 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.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.1-27
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• 2014

This paper aims at exploring the multi-scalar processes through which the Gumi Industrial Complex was developed in the late 1960s and the early 1970s. Existing studies, influenced by the "Developmental State Thesis", tend to see the industrialization processes of South Korea either by focusing on the socio-politico-economic processes at the national scale or in terms of the plan rationality of the national bureaucrats. This paper, however, denies this perspective on the basis of the strategic relational approach to the state and the multi-scalar perspective. In particular, it argues that the state actions for national industrialization have been the outcome of complex interactions, conflicts and negotiations among social forces, acting in and through the state, and at diverse geographical scales. This paper attempts to empirically prove this argument on the basis of a case study on the construction processes of Gumi Industrial Complex. The development of Gumi Industrial Complex cannot be solely explained in terms of either the plan rationality of the national bureaucrats or the political motivation related to the fact that Gumi was the hometown of President Park Jung-Hee. This paper argues that the development of Gumi Industrial Complex was heavily influenced by the role of the following actors; place-dependent local actors in Gumi and the multi-scalar agents, such as the Korean-Japanese businessmen and the national parliament members elected in the Gumi electoral district.