• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
• /
• v.31 no.2
• /
• pp.160-197
• /
• 1996

The purpose of this study is to review research trends and issues of economic geography in Korea for the last fifty years by sub-fields of agricultural geography, industrial geography, commercial and service geography, and transportation geography. Research in Korean economic geography has progressed significantly in terms of the scope and the number of papers published during the last a half a century. Agricultural geography was a leading field of economic geography in Korea before mid-1970s. Since the mid-1970s, however, agricultural geography has turned over the leading role in economic geography to industrial geography. Classification and structure of agricultural region has been the most popular research theme in Korea, even though diverse topics has been dealt in the research of agricultulal geography in Korea during the last fifty years. In recent years, emphasis is given to study on the dynamics of agricultural region and regional differentiation of part-time farming. It is suggested that the future issues of research in agricultural geography in Korea are agricultural restructuring and changes in agricultural space under the WTO system, changes in rural area and agricultural region with the progress of informatization, changes in agricultural structures and rural society by the increase of part-time farming, governments agricultulal policy and its impacts, competitive advantages of Korean agricultulal products, and environmental impacts of agricultural restructuring. Research in industrial geography has remarkably progressed since the 1980s. Locational changes, regional industrial structure and formation of industrial region were the major topics of interest in the research of industrial geography in Korea before 1980. Since the early 1980s, in addition to the topics which were interested in before 1980, changes of industrial organization and industrial location, changes of production systems and industrial space development of high technology industries and science parks, industrial restructuring and regional economy, foreign direct investments, industrial linkages and industrial districts, and industrial policy and regional development have been the major research themes of industrial geography in Korea. Considerable number of papers has been published both in Korean journals and in foreign journals during this period. Considering global changes in the organization of industrial space, future research should be more focused on firms strategy for regaining competitive advantages, local and global perspectives of industry, industry and environmental changes, in addition to the topics which have been dealt in recent years. Research in commercial and service geography and transportation geography was negligible in Korea before the late 1970s. These two sub-fields in economic geography have begun to develop since 1980s. Periodic markets, structure of commercial area, and distribution of products were the major topics of interest in the 1980s in the commercial and service geography in Korea. In the 1990s, however reserch in producer services has been active with growth of producer services in Korean economy. It is suggested that regional changes with progress of informatization and technology, changes of international trade and regional changes, development of efficient distribution system, role of producer services in regional development, and network of producer services are the major issues to be studied in the future in the field of commercial and service geography in Korea. Commuting, distribution of products, and transportation networks have been the major topics of research in transportation geography in Korea. Diverse quantitative techniques have been applied in the most of the researches in transportation geography. It is required that future studies in transportation geography should also focus on societal and behavioral issues, policy issues regional impacts of new transportation facilities, an analysis of transportation system at the global or international level. Since the 1980s economic geography in Korea has considerably progressed with publication of papers and books. The progress can be regarded as successful in quantitative aspect, but not in quantitative aspects. For the development of Korean economic geography in both quantitative and qualitative aspects, it is necessary to promote international collaborative researches and interdisciplinary cooperations. Attention should also be given to the research on changes in competitive advantages and economic restructuring, changes of economic space with the development of high technology and the progress of informatization. economic development and culture. and foreign regional studies.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
• /
• v.14 no.3
• /
• pp.241-262
• /
• 2011

The aim of this study is to examine the changes of institution, quantity and approach methods of research results in the history of Korean economic geography during the last fifty-five years (1956-2010) and to offer the preparations for the future research. The history Korean economic geography can be divided into four periods: 'period of cradle' (1956-1962), 'period of establishment' (1963-later 1970s)', 'period of leap (the former half of 1980s-the former half of 1990s)', and 'period of transition (since later 1990s)'. Many departments of geography education and geography have been founded in the 'period of establishment' and 'period of leap'. Among the total research matters (1,621), 44.4 percent of research results have been made in 2000s and the most researched field was that of manufacturing geography, which occupied 27.7 percent. In the approach methods, about two-thirds of the results are the empirical inductive approach and the research frameworks method which clarified the regional structures and theory of spatial system occupied each about 40 percent. In the future, each research field of Korean economic geography is expected to take more serious view of nature environment, thorough regional survey, and preference of economy-society-culture-knowledge in the research framework of spatial network theory.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
• /
• v.41 no.6 s.117
• /
• pp.639-656
• /
• 2006

The purposes of this paper are to examine the mechanism of the new economic spaces and to suggest directions of geographical research in the knowledge-based information society. It introduces the background of the formation of the new economic spaces and examines network, embeddedness, and agglomeration and dispersion as mechanisms of the new economic spaces. Based on the result of case studies of Kangnam area, the most active innovation region in Korea, and of Sunchang, one of the backward regions in Korea, the paper points out that new economic spaces are now developing even in the peripheral areas. Considering the result of theoretical discussions and case studies, the paper suggests three directions for future geographical research such as research from a integrative viewpoint, development of new methodologies of geographical research, and policy directed research in geography.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
• /
• v.22 no.1
• /
• pp.70-83
• /
• 2019

This paper reviews how geographers have embraced the information and communication technology and expanded their perspectives from real space to virtual space. Information and communication geography research on the wired internet infrastructure began in the late 1990s, but the tradition has not been succeeded for the wireless internet technology. While the relationship-expansion, reproduction, and constraint-between real and virtual spaces have been studied by virtual geography scholars, we need more empirical research to reveal to what extent the two spaces impact to each other. To empirically investigate the physicality of the virtual, it will be useful to combine information and communication geography and virtual geography. However, it should be noted that empirical studies in the subfields can be criticized as being data- or technological deterministic.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
• /
• v.31 no.2
• /
• pp.329-345
• /
• 1996

The purposes of this study are to review research trends of applied geography field, to retrospect geographical works done by Korean geographers in applied geography, and to prospect the future of applied geography. We are in the period where societal problems such as energy, transportation, pollution, environment, health care, and many others, require careful consideration and need throughout strategies for solution. Most societal problems have some geographical dimensions. Because these problems are geographic in nature, there is an obvious implication that geography as a discipline has something to offer in their solutions. In fact, most geographic problems are best presented and analyzed through the applications of geographic theories, concepts and tools. Applied geography is a branch of general geography. It relies on the scientific methods and uses the principles and methods of pure geography. However applied geography is different in that it analyzes and evaluates real world action and planning and seeks to implement and manipulate environmental and spatial realities. Thus, geographic theories and other social theories that have geographic dimensions are fundamental to applied geography. Applied geography has a short history as theme in Korean geography. During the last two decades. Korea achieved remarkable economic growth. We have also encountered widening regional disparity, housing shortage of larger cities, transportation congestion, environmental pollution and many other problems. Applied geographers have tried to analyze and solve such spatial problems during the last 30 years. The research trend of Korean applied geography can be subdivided into 5 categories: (1) land use analysis and efficient utilization, (2) national physical development and planning. (3) regional development and regional planning, (4) tourism and location-allocation, transportation planning. Still the overconcentration of Seoul metropolitan region and unbalanced regional development are perceived to be the serious spatial problems which may induce more works to solve these problems. In Korea new emphasis has to be given to some professional training and experimental learning, including methodology, field techniques data management, statistical analysis, cartography, GIS, and other tools, as applicable and beneficial to problem solving in real world. The growth of applied geography depends on new insights and purposed solutions of future applied geographers in Korea. Applied geographers will contribute to the creation of future Korean geographies.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
• /
• v.3 no.1
• /
• pp.115-134
• /
• 1997

We now live in the new era of globalization which implies the functional integration or increase of inter-dependency between internationally dispersed economic activities. As globalization impacts our various activities and daily lives, social sciences, including, geography, attempt to approach social phenomena from a global perspective. From this point of view. new regional geography, which has been articulated in recent social theory since the 1980s, also must adjust to these new world realities. This paper aims to search for a suitable methodology or approach to area study or regional geography in the era of globalization and to suggest the field of area study that Korean geographers should be concerned with in the future. This paper has reviewed the existing various methodologies of regional geography such as the ecological approach, the landscape approach. the areal differentiation approach, the system approach, the structuration theory, the spatial division of labour, and the world-system, which have deviced in the traditional and new regional geography. Peter Taylor's regional geography of world systems among them has an appropriate rationale of area study in the globalization era, because world-systems theory explains well globalization. However the regional geography of world-systems must be revised to become more suitable to the area-study approach in the globalization era. Firstly, the regional geography of world-systems explains that regions(historical regions) are made by general mechanisms of the capitalist world-economy that operate through social, economic, and political agents within regions such as individuals, households, social classes, economic enterprises, states, political movements, and many other organizations. But these mechanisms can also act through other regional agents of geographical location, natural conditions, and cultural characteristics. Therefore, the generating process of regions needs to be explained by locational, natural, and cultural elements in addition to social, economic, and political elements within regions. Secondly, Taylor's world-systems approach does not express composite characteristics of regions, because it focuses on the economic characteristics or position of regions within the world-economy. Regions incorporated into world-economy systems are not only changed economically, but also changed spatially, socially, culturally, and politically. Hence the world-systems approach must try to analyze these composite characteristics and their change of regions. Thirdly, The world-system approach proposed that the geography of regions within world-systems could be divided and analyzed as three regional types at the geographical scale such as international regions, state regions, and intra-state regions. However such a regionalization is usually not identified distinctly, because the geographical range of regions in world-systems shaped by economic boundaries of the general mechanisms of the world-economy is fluid and also occasionally overlaps with other political regions. Hence I propose that the world-systems approach should choose political boundaries of states and local autonomies in addition to economic boundaries for objective regionalization and systematic areal study. The revised regional geography of world-systems that I have suggested in this paper can be more effectively and properly applied to regional geography or area study in the globalization era. Globalization intensifies competition between states and also between local autonomies in the world. Therefore we must make efforts to study such areas or regions through the revised regional geography of world-system.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
• /
• v.31 no.2
• /
• pp.255-267
• /
• 1996

The so-called Cultural and Historical Geography, sometimes called even as the Historical and Cultural Geography, has been defined as an interdiscipline that encompasses several disciplines in Korea. Scholars with various academic background have participated in the academic activity of the Association of Korean Cultural and Historical Geographers that was organized in the late 1980s. The academic majors of these participants are cultural geography, historical geography, history of geography, urban geography rural geography, economic geography, social and economic history anthropology, landscape architecture, and so on. It was in the 1960s that articles about the Cultural and Historical Geography appeared for the first time in the major academic journals in Korea. The pioneers of publishing these articles in the 1960s continued to conduct their research, while training students majoring in the Cultural and Historical Geography in the 1970s. All of these pioneers and their students were very active in the formation of identity vrith the Cultural and Historical Geography In the 1980s. Cultural and Historical Geography in Korea took a great leap forward both in quantity and in quality. The number of articles in the journal increased substantially, and the range of research theme and methodology extended in a great deal. It was also in the late 1980s that the Association of Korean Cultural and Historical Geographers was organized in Seoul, Korea, and this association began to publish a professional journal named Cultural and Historical Geography once a year. In the 1990s, single-authored books dealing with Korean Cultural and Historcial Geography began to appear in public as textbooks or research monographs. These books are expected to speed up the spread of Cultural and Historical Geography in Korea. If it continues to grow further both in quantity and in quality as it has been, Cultural and Historical Geography in Korea will be able to stand as an independent academic field in the future. Until then, however, it cannot but avoid its mission to contribute to an integrated development of human geography in Korea. It has already gained not only its own merit in the humanistic perspective but also its own strength in its synthetic understanding.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
• /
• v.14 no.4
• /
• pp.642-656
• /
• 2011

As a part of the Saemangeum development, the Gunsan Bi-eung port is underway to be developed for a tourism complex. Since the perception and preferences of the residents are one of the most important steps for the project, those were surveyed and analyzed to generate a proposed vitalization plan. Based on the survey, most of residents had negative opinions on the current development and condition as well as the effectiveness of the development in the future. Residents also pointed out that leisure facilities and higher level of accommodation were necessary, and desired a coastal deck in the Bi-eung beach. Therefore, for vitalization of Bi-eung port area, construction of a comprehensive resort with sports and leisure facility is suggested to attract visitors. Also, efforts from residents and administrative supports are required in marketing, advertizement, and sound business environment.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
• /
• v.14 no.3
• /
• pp.394-406
• /
• 2011

The retailing industry in Korea has developed with new store formats: supermarket, convenient store, discount Store, and super-super market. Also, there are confrontation and conflict between them, becoming a national issue. This study reviews the existing literatures in Korean geography of retailing and consumption and attempts to set forth the future research themes and topics. The review shows that the existing literatures disproportionately focus on location, diffusion, and market area of the new store formats. The future research themes and topics includes the marketplace combined with recreation, donation, environment-friendliness, or social welfare; marketplace as a part of global production and distribution system; expansion of marketplace into homes which are longstanding private space; spatial structure of retailing at various geographical scale.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
• /
• v.26 no.4
• /
• pp.458-476
• /
• 2023

This study analyzes previous research on 'The Self-Governance of the Commons' to overcome 'The Tragedy of the Commons', and derives elements for successful commons management. These factors are compared and analyzed with the social and economic attributes of the Jeju Haenyeo community, a successful community self-governance model. In addition, in the recently changing environment, it is revealed whether this internal community mechanism can be useful in the future. The goal is to reveal what social and economic factors will help the sustainability of the Jeju haenyeo community in the future. As a result of analyzing the internal operating mechanism of the Jeju haenyeo community, the production and distribution system that improves trust and reciprocity, the inherent sense of community, the division of roles between formal and informal organizations, and the institutionalized explicit and implicit norms within the organization served as internal and external strengths of community sustainability. However, the closure of the network, the crisis of productivity, the weakening of homogeneity, and the emergence of new subjects acted as internal and external weaknesses. In conclusion, for the sustainability of the Jeju Haenyeo community, it is necessary to reorganize the reproductive function of labor using the haenyeo school, to maintain clarity on the subject of livelihood and cultural transmission, and guarantee the income of Haenyeo.