• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.42 no.2 s.119
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• pp.196-217
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• 2007

During the last decade, Los Angeles Koreatown experienced unprecedented changes transforming it from an immigrant ethnic enclave into a transnational economic space. Alongside of the city government's redevelopment plans and local Korean Americans' grass-root efforts to regenerate Koreatown, transnational Korean actors have aggressively invested in property as well as business sectors. However, despite these multi-scaled geographic transitions, Koreatown remains one of the poorest and most crime-infested inner-city communities in the City of Los Angeles. This paper, based on a 'place-based' bottom-up approach, investigates contradictory geographies of Koreatown in which multi-scaled network of hegemonic transnational, urban and local development actors has developed representational, unlived economies. This research points out that the recent urban regeneration of Koreatown has not only excluded but also exploited local community members such as transnational Korean/Latino workers in the area. This paper conclusively suggests that the sustainable future of Koreatown's development would stem from place-based community consciousness that crisscrosses racial and ethnic boundaries.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.8-30
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• 2020

Most literature on the "comfort women" social movement focuses on the case of Korea. These works tend to transpose the meanings generated by South Korean organizations onto the transnational network, assuming certain homogeneity of repertoires and identities among the different social actors that comprise this network. Even though there is some degree of consensus about demands, repertoires, and advocacy strategies at the international level, does this same uniformity exist at the national level? In each country, what similarities and differences are present in the laboratories of ideas, relationships, and identities of social actors in the network? Symbolically and politically, do they challenge their respective societies in the same way? This article compares this social movement in South Korea, China, and Taiwan. My main argument is that the constitutive base for this transnational network is the domestic actions of these organizations. It is in the domestic sphere that these social actors reinforce their agendas, reinvent their repertoires, transform their identities, and expand their submerged networks, allowing national movements to retain their latency and autonomy. Following Melucci's relational approach to the study of social movements, this research is based on a qualitative analysis of institutional documents, participant observation, and open-ended interviews with members of the main social actors.

• The Journal of Learner-Centered Curriculum and Instruction (JLCCI)
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.197-241
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• 2019

The rapid development of China's wind energy sector was facilitated by a number of transnational actors including organisations for international cooperation and international environmental organisations. This paper explores their evolving roles at different development stages in order to extend our understanding of the socio-political conditions for energy transition. Employing the framework of norm diffusion theories, this study focuses on the transnational advocacy group supporting wind energy for environmental purposes and analyses their norm promotion activities in interaction with domestic proponent as well as opponent groups. This analysis shows that the transnational actors successfully laid the foundation for the commercial wind energy development throughout the 1990s but experienced marginalisation during the sector expansion due to the dominance of the central government and its protectionist industrial policy. As the domestic opponent groups caused high-level wind curtailment in the 2010s, the international advocacy group has increasingly conducted offensive norm promotion activities. This case of the Chinese wind energy development suggests that the international transfer of technology and policy measures in combination with the mobilisation of economic resources support the growth of the wind energy sector, which nonetheless suffers lacking influence of environmental norms and faces conflicts with the traditional players of the electricity sector. Based on these findings, this study concludes that the key socio-political condition for energy transition is the formation of a power configuration which facilitates the effectiveness of environmental norms and thus confronts the powerful opponents of wind energy.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.295-314
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• 2010

The paper attempts to balance the discourses of transnational spaces that have focused on de-territorialization, by emphasizing that transnational spaces are maintained also through re-territorialization. Reviewing the literature of transnational social fields, translocality, multicultural spaces and transnational places, I aim to show the way the main issues from the literature help understand an actually existing transnational space, Little Mania in Daehangno, Seoul. I specifically address the dialectic relation between de-territorialization and re-territorialization, multi-scalar networks, and hybridity of multicultural spaces in interpreting the weekend enclave of Filipinos in Seoul. I argues that Little Manila is a grounded translocality operating through multi-scaled networks of various actors. Furthermore, it is not a unified space where one dominant Filipino identity stands out. Different Filipinos and Filipinas constitute the space imagining different homes. It is also a multicultural space open to other minorities, which suggests the possibility of alternative spatial politics based on co-presence of different 'Others'.

• SUVANNABHUMI
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.101-132
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• 2019

Why do some local rebel groups choose to form asymmetric alliances with large transnational terrorist organizations? This paper examines asymmetric terrorist alliance patterns by studying the international ties of domestic insurgencies in Southeast Asia. It uses data from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand to construct a theory defining the determinants of the choice of alliance strategies by terrorist groups. The findings conclude that rebels with limited aims prefer to act alone out of fear of entrapment. They are cautious of becoming associated with the struggle of transnational radical groups and provoking organized response from international and regional counterterrorism authorities. Local groups are more likely to seek alliance with an established movement when they have ambitious final objectives, challenging the core interests of the target state. In this case, the benefits of training and logistic support provided by an experienced organization outweigh the costs of becoming a target for coordinated counterterrorist campaign.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.1-22
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• 2017

This paper is to consider conceptually a formation of food-networks and border-crossing of transnational marriage migrant households on the basis of actor-network theory, and to analyze empirical data on the issues collected by interview with marriage migrant women living around Daegu, S.Korea. Some research results can be argued as follows: First, food can be seen, not as a single material object, but as a multiple and hybrid network of human and nonhuman (material and institutional) actors, in which activities of food cooking and eating are regulated by and (re)construct social relations and placeness of households. Secondly, food-networks in marriage migrant households implement relationships of micro-power (and attachment) in the process of its (re)formation, and hence the food-network, it can be argued, is a field of power in which conflicts and compromising around food cooking and eating are intersecting each others. Thirdly, food-networks in marriage migrant households in both their origin country and in the Korean home are not only affected by macro natural and social environments but also by micro placeness of the households, both of which constitute the food-networks and operate in relations with other actors in the netwroks. Finally, food-networks in marriage migrant households reflect multiple and multi-scalar spatial mobility and placeness of transnational food culture, through which they express topologically 'fluid space' and 'absent presence', in which marriage migrant women can (or cannot) conduct social and cultural border-crossing.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.43 no.6
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• pp.894-913
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• 2008

This study examines scale issues in the contemporary feminist migration literature. Scale appears as important, yet poorly understood concept in this field of study. The increasing attention to the feminization of migration requires not only gendered, but also scalar-sensitive approaches. Feminists criticize the conventional approach to the migration as a gender-blind approach that privileges national scale around which migration processes are organized. Claiming multiscalar and interscalar analyses, they propose investigations ranging from macro to micro processes which include globalized gendered division of labor, transnational family networks, and reproduction which takes place in and through the bodies and homes of migrant women. The migrant women, the major actors in recent transnational migration, cross various borders: the national boundaries and the public and private divides, in particular. This crossover can unsettle patriarchal gender relations which have been established based on the physical and symbolic division of nation-states and public/private spheres. Blurring these divisions accompanies social construction of various scales. The transnational family networks of migrant women, for example, show the construction of a transnational scale by migrant women as well as globalization from below. This paper points out misunderstandings of scale in the feminist migration literature and attempts to fill the gaps by introducing the meanings and implications of scales developed mostly by feminist geographers. In so doing, it promotes the interdisciplinary communication.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2022.06a
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• pp.33-41
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• 2022

Infrastructure procurement has been a major engagement route between China and Africa. This contributes immensely to the gradual infrastructure development seen on the continent. However, maturing discourse purports that these infrastructure collaborations lack intentionality in the continuous development of strategic guidelines and policies for effective implementation despite their uniqueness and criticality. This study proposes that an efficient approach to policy recommendations is through the political and economic analysis (PEA) of these partnerships using public-private partnership (PPP) optics. Unquestionably, these partnerships are representative of the concept of diplomatic transnational public-private partnership (DT-PPP) where infrastructure is procured through the collaboration of public (African governments) and private sector (Chinese state-owned corporations) who provide the managerial, financial, and technical resources for the project implementation. Given the quest for sustainable win-win, this study identifies strategies towards the realization of win-win in the implementation (i.e enablers of win-win) such that fairness and co-benefit, as well as interests, will be achieved. Thus, based on the PEA framework, case scenarios from Ghana and Nigeria using expert interviews identify the criticalities and best practices for the realization of these enablers at the development phase. Findings indicate more effort is required of the public sector (African host countries) in terms of people, structure/institutions, and the implementation processes. Recommendations include improvement of environmental management structures, contract administration procedures, external stakeholders/local community engagement mechanisms, knowledge and technology transfer procedures, and sector-based project operation and maintenance culture and systems. Additionally, actors must have emotional intelligence, good problem-solving abilities, and overall ensure cordial relationships for continued bilateral cooperation.

• Journal of International Area Studies (JIAS)
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.129-153
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• 2010

The guiding research question of this paper is to discover 'why the UK could not develop a general structure in which transnational corporations were born during the end of the 19th ~ beginning of the 20th century like other countries'. In response to this question, although acknowledging its imperfections, the author would like to explore the causality in the context of 'Social Construction' which is reflected in the attributes of British society. As such, researchers are strongly recommended to take into account the actors' interests and the increased value effect of events which is driven by control power. This paper concludes that: firstly, not only was contempt for industrial capitalism prevalent in British society, the British government was unable to recognize the necessity of promoting policies for the development of transnational corporation. In addition, the increase in the clout of commercial-financial capitalists in the city of London along with the expansion of gentlemanly elites interfered with the transnationality of British companies. Secondly, the foundation of the political and economic structures in the UK experienced continuity and challenge simultaneously. Since the 1850's, the British social structure has been progressively characterized by the strengthening power of the commercial-financial elites in London, which resulted not in the transnationality of manufacturing but that of financial services. Finally, the configuration of the social network driven by the British elites consists of the actors' interests and control power in association with severance and connection. Unlike the complementarity of interests, in the initial stage, intended connection based on voluntary motivation between gentries and commercial-financial elites occurred in terms of control power. However, ultimately, the holding of power was transferred to the commercial-financial elites excluding the industrial capitalists and resulted in the reconfiguration of the social network.

• Asian Journal of Innovation and Policy
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.75-100
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• 2023

Over the past few decades, globalization has been shifting economic power upward to transnational actors on the one hand, and downward to subnational or regional spaces on the other. This phenomenon has resulted in the centrality of territorially delimited subnational regions acting as critical loci of economic governance within a complex and globally distributed value chain of trade and service flows. Within this broader context of industrial restructuring are economic regions that span national borders in their collective assets. The paper focuses on investigating the economic competitiveness and productivity of cross-border (or binational) economic regions. Using the conceptual framework of economic clusters, an econometric model that measures proxies of geographic proximity of firms in the life sciences cluster, and a new binational economic model, the paper examines the key characteristics, potentials and constraints of economic competitiveness and productivity in a cross-border region comprising counties in Western New York and regional municipalities in Southern Ontario. The findings demonstrate the direct and indirect benefits of closer cross-border economic cooperation. The paper then concludes with some policy observations about leveraging cross-border economic clusters for strategic industrial cooperation.