• 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.

• 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.