As the threat of climate change to political and economic security increases, urban agriculture has become an important component of resilience strategy for many local and national policy makers. The Seoul Metropolitan Government in Korea promises to build resilience to climate change through the expansion of urban farming, which they anticipate will provide new social, economic, and environmental amenities. The research is a political geographic analysis of Seoul's greenbelt as a site of policy conflict over urban land use for agriculture and sustainable development. The project investigates both civic engagement with recent government policies that reorganize urban farming for sustainability, as well as the implications for residents, commercial farmers, and urban development. This research is a collaboration with Dr. Youngmin Lee, a noted social scientist and expert on issues of urban revitalization, sustainable development, and citizenship at Ewha University. The study employs analysis of government urban farming policies, formal interviews with relevant government officials, and conversational interviews and participant observation with greenbelt urban farmers. The project will address the need for empirical data among policymakers considering sustainable urban growth proposals in a political context where the state endeavors to build legitimacy amid widespread dissent. Evaluations of the interface between state and society over issues of urban sustainability in Seoul will inform urban planning for climate change in the United States and abroad.
Seoul?s greenbelt is a legacy of developmental state planning under the government of Park Chung-hee. Initially, the greenbelt served as a strategic buffer against potential North Korean military incursions and the detrimental effects of the nation?s rapid industrialization on urban air quality. Amidst democratization and market liberalization, the greenbelt has endured as a site of contestation between land use policies criticized as either overly authoritarian or neoliberal. As the preeminent activation site for Seoul?s urban farming initiatives, the greenbelt offers an invaluable opportunity to examine the interrelatedness of geopolitical, economic, and environmental security, as well as to assess issues of citizen participation in the context of political and economic liberalization. As an ethnography of the interface between the state, society, and environment, the research responds to the need for empirical data on facilitating sustainable growth in a context where new state priorities encounter skepticism and apprehension.
This award under the East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes program supports summer research by a U.S. graduate student and is jointly funded by NSF and the National Research Foundation of Korea.
