Property-based redevelopment and gentrification: The case of Seoul, South Korea

The urban experiences of South Korea in times of its rapid urbanisation and economic growth show that wholesale redevelopment had been a dominant approach to urban renewal, leading to redevelopment-induced gentrification. This was led by a programme known as the Joint Redevelopment Programme, transforming urban space that was once dominated by informal settlements into high-rise commercial housing estates. This paper tries to explain how this approach was possible at city-wide scale in its capital city, Seoul. Through the examination of redevelopment processes in a case study neighbourhood, it puts forward three arguments. First, the development potential arising from the rent gap expansion through under-utilisation of dilapidated neighbourhoods provided material conditions for the sustained implementation of property-based redevelopment projects. Second, this paper critically examines the dynamics of socio-political relations among various property-based interests embedded in redevelopment neighbourhoods, and argues that external property-based interests have enabled the full exploitation of development opportunities at the expense of poor owner-occupiers and tenants. Third, South Korea had been noted for its strong developmental state with minimum attention to redistributive social policies. The Joint Redevelopment Programme in Seoul was effectively a market-oriented, profit-led renewal approach, in line with a national housing strategy that favoured increased housing production and home-ownership at the expense of local poor residents’ housing needs.     

Regulatory migration regimes and the production of space: The case of Nepalese workers in South Korea

This paper engages with contemporary debates in labour geography through its focus on: migrant workers as active agents of change; precarious employment, its complexities and consequences; and the importance of material spaces in migrant labour struggles. Since the early 2000s the South Korean government has been strengthening the institutionalised regulation of low-wage migrant workers. A key tool in this process is the Employment Permit System (EPS), in force since 2004. Under this policy migrant workers are temporary sojourners and effectively socio-politically, culturally and spatially excluded from Korean society. EPS restricts migrants’ freedom to choose or change workplaces, which renders them vulnerable to economic and social precarity. Employers use these restrictions to segregate migrant workers from co-nationals, and low-waged migrant workers often find themselves in exploitative working conditions in isolated places. This paper is based on deep ethnographic fieldwork in “Nepal Town” in Seoul and remote Nepalese workers’ accommodation. We examine how such precarious working conditions and isolation impact on workers’ active involvement in the formation and transformation of Nepal Town in Seoul. We examine the ways in which Nepal Town is a site of spatial agency and praxis for Nepalese workers and explore the potentialities of ‘reactive ethnicity’. The empirical insights provided, suggest that the regulatory migration regime for low-wage migrant workers is strongly linked with new formations of material landscapes of connection, mobility, freedom and safe space. Such space production enables migrant workers to perform agency and employ tactics of resistance in order to create spaces of possibility.     

First report of lacertiform (lizard) tracks from the Cretaceous of Asia

The well-preserved trackway of a lacertiform, lizard-like trackmaker from the Haman Formation (Cretaceous) of Korea is described as Neosauroides koreaensis ichnogen. et ichnosp. nov. This is the only example of a Cretaceous lacertiform or lizard-like trackway currently known in the global track record. Although lacertiform trackways, mostly assigned to the ichnogenus Rhynchosauroides, are common in the global Triassic, they are almost entirely absent in the Jurassic and Cretaceous. Moreover, ichnological classification criteria allow that Neosauroides is morphologically distinct from Rhynchosauroides at the genus level, and more like the tracks of the extant lizard Sceloporus. The reasons for the conspicuous lack of post-Triassic occurrences are not certain, but not due to a post-Triassic lack of potential lizard trackmakers. Thus, the preservation biases are likely due to paleobiological factors such as trackmaker ecology and paleoenvironmental preference.     

Mid-Cretaceous dinosaur track assemblage from the Tongfosi Formation of China: Comparison with the track assemblage of South Korea

A Yanji Basin tracksite in the Cretaceous Tongfosi Formation in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, Jilin Province was reinvestigated twenty years after the original study.The re-examination confirms the presence of tracks tentatively referred to ornithopods and theropod tracks including several not previously reported. In addition to the main track-bearing level, a second footprint horizon was identified from which a probable ornithopod track was collected. Some of the formerly identified tracks were documented using photogrammetry, whereas others that had been collected, eroded, buried or obscured by dense vegetation. The age of the track-bearing beds is inferred to be late Albian to early Cenomanian. Comparison with track-bearing units of the same age in Shandong, China, and Korea indicated quite different compositions of track assemblages. In the case of the Korean sites the differences may be facies related. While the Korean ichnofauna is characterized by the co-occurrence of ornithopod, sauropod and tridactyl theropod tracks with didactyl dromaeosaurid, Minisauripus (small theropod), pterosaur and avian tracks, the latter four are absent in the Tongfosi assemblage. This could reflect a restricted environment being not favourable for activities of these trackmakers or simply a preservational bias.     

Neither friends nor foes: Thoughts on ethnographic distance

As a critical ethnographer of proselytizing missions led by conservative Korean/American evangelicals, I discuss the difficulties arising from conducting research in a hostile group setting, negotiating the dynamics of empathetic proximity and critical distance.     

Intrinsic random function of order<Emphasis Type="Italic"> k</Emphasis> kriging of electrical resistivity data for estimating the extent of saltwater intrusion in a coastal aquifer system

A saltwater intrusion study using electrical resistivity distribution was conducted in a coastal aquifer system in the southeastern part of Busan, Korea. This aquifer system is divided into four layers according to the hydrogeologic characteristics, and the horizontal extent of intruded saltwater is determined at each layer through the geostatistical interpretation of electrical resistivity data. Intrinsic random function of order k (IRF-k) kriging is performed with covariance models to produce the plane of spatial mean resistivities. The kriged estimates are evaluated by cross validation, and they showed a good agreement with the true values. The statistics of cross validation represented low errors for the estimates. In the resistivity contour maps more than 5 m below the surface, a dominant direction of saltwater intrusion was observed beginning from the east side. These results led the authors to conclude that the application of geostatistical technique to electrical resistivity data is useful for assessing saltwater intrusion in a coastal aquifer system.     

Spinel granulite in Odesan area, South Korea: Tectonic implications for the collision between the North and South China blocks

Spinel granulite formed in the Fe–Al-rich layers in migmatitic gneiss adjacent to a late Paleozoic collision-related mangerite intrusion in the Odesan area, eastern Gyeonggi Massif, South Korea, contains the high-temperature (HT) assemblage Crd + Spl + Crn. Spinel and cordierite compositions indicate peak metamorphic conditions of 914–1157 °C. Retrograde metamorphism reached amphibolite facies where garnet and cordierite broke down to biotite, sillimanite and quartz. These conditions, and the reactions inferred from mineral textures, are consistent with a clockwise P–T path. Metamorphic zircon overgrowths in the spinel granulite and enclosing migmatitic gneiss, dated by SHRIMP U–Pb, yield Permo-Triassic ages of 245 ± 10 and 248 ± 18 Ma respectively, consistent with the metamorphism being a product of the late Paleozoic collision between the North and South China blocks within South Korea. The zircon core ages and textures suggest that the ultimate source of the spinel granulite was a Paleoproterozoic (1852 ± 14 Ma) igneous rock. The protolith of the host migmatitic gneiss was a sediment derived principally from 2.49, 2.16 and 1.86 Ga sources. The age and conditions of spinel granulite metamorphism are similar to those of spinel-bearing granulite in the Higo terrane in west-central Kyushu (250 Ma, > 950 °C at 8–9 kbar), consistent with a continuation of the Dabie-Sulu collision zone into Japan through the Odesan area.     

The effect of subaerial exposure on the morphology and microstructure of stromatolites in the Cretaceous Sinyangdong Formation,Gyeongsang Supergroup,Korea1

Stromatolite morphology is usually controlled by a number of biological and environmental factors. In the south‐eastern part of the Korean Peninsula, three stromatolite units of the Cretaceous Sinyangdong Formation have been studied with regard to the effect of diagenesis on their morphology. Here, it is proposed that subaerial exposure and meteoric diagenesis are the most significant factors in shaping the stromatolites of the Cretaceous Sinyangdong Formation. Most previous palaeontological and sedimentological studies on stromatolites have concentrated on the environmental and biogenic controls on stromatolite morphology. These include extrinsic factors such as sedimentation rates or current velocities. The main controlling factor on the morphology of the stromatolites in the Sinyangdong Formation is apparently transient subaerial exposure and related meteoric diagenesis. Textural examination of stromatolite samples from three stratigraphic horizons shows a characteristic repetitive pattern of cycles with gradual transition from fibrous calcite to micrite layers, reflecting changes in the hydrological cycle of the lake in which the stromatolites grew. Stromatolite growth was terminated by corroded surfaces indicative of subaerial exposure related to a fall in lake level. The growth pattern of the stromatolites was mostly determined by the morphology of the corroded substrates during subaerial exposure. Furthermore, the internal stromatolite structure was strongly modified by the process of leaching. As a result, growth forms mostly changed from stratiform to columnar mesostructure. This study strongly implies that diagenesis could make a very significant influence on the morphogenesis of lacustrine stromatolites in the geological past.     

Groundwater occurrence on Jeju Island, Korea

Jeju Island is a volcanic island composed predominantly of permeable basalts. The island is poor in surface water but abundant in groundwater. No actual perennial streams exist and the water resources on the island are dependent almost entirely on groundwater. The groundwater bodies on the island are classified into three general categories: high level, basal and parabasal groundwaters. The parabasal groundwater is further subdivided into lower and upper parabasal groundwaters due to the position of the Seogwipo Formation, which is made up of sedimentary rocks with a low permeability. The distribution of each groundwater type was evaluated through analyses of the spatial distribution of the Seogwipo Formation and the hydraulic gradient of the groundwater. Basal groundwater emerges extensively along the coast of the eastern sector, less commonly along the coast of the western sector. Parabasal groundwater occurs extensively over most of the island except for the southern sector, where it occurs only locally in the coastal area. This paper presents a summary of several studies on the occurrence and features of groundwater resources on Jeju Island, the largest island in Korea.     

A Middle Ordovician Drowning Unconformity on the Northeastern Flank of the Okcheon (Ogcheon) Belt, South Korea

The Maggol Limestone of Ordovician age was deposited in the Taebaeksan (Taebacksan) Basin which occupies the northeastern flank of the Okcheon (Ogcheon) Belt of South Korea. Carbonate facies analysis in conjunction with conodont biostratigraphy suggests that an overall regression toward the top of the Maggol Limestone probably culminated in subaerial exposure of platform carbonates in the early Middle Ordovician (earliest Darriwilian). Elsewhere this subaerial exposure event is manifested as a major paleokarst unconformity at the Sauk-Tippecanoe sequence boundary beneath the Middle Ordovician succession and its equivalents, most in notably North America and North China. Due to its global extent, this paleokarst unconformity has been viewed as a product of second- or third-order eustatic sea level fall during the early Middle Ordovician. The Sauk-Tippecanoe sequence boundary in South Korea, however, appears to be a discrete marine-flooding surface in the upper Maggol Limestone. Strata beneath this surface represent by a thinning-upward stack of exposure-capped tidal flat-dominated cycles that are closely associated with multiple occurrences of paleokarst-related solution-collapse breccias. This marine-flooding surface is onlapped by a thick succession of thin-bedded micritic limestone that is eventually overlain by a Middle Ordovician condensed section. This physical stratigraphic relationship suggest that second- and third-order eustatic sea level fall may have been significantly tempered by regional tectonic subsidence near the end of Maggol deposition. The tectonic subsidence is also evidenced by the occurrence of coeval off-platform lowstand siliciclastic quartzite lenses as well as debris flow carbonate breccias (i.e., the Yemi Breccia) in the basin. With continued tectonic subsidence, a subsequent rise in the eustatic cycle caused drowning and deep flooding of the carbonate platform, forming a discrete marine-flooding surface that may be referred to as a drowning unconformity. This tectonic interpretation contrasts notably with the slowly subsiding carbonate platform model for the basin as has been previously suggested. Thus, it is proposed that the Taebaeksan Basin in the northeastern flank on the Okcheon Belt evolved from a slowly subsiding carbonate platform to a rapidly subsiding intracontinental rift basin during the early Middle Ordovician.