The Cultural Politics of Urban Development in South Korea

Art, Memory and Urban Boosterism in Gwangju

HaeRan Shin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780367197322
• eBook ISBN: 9780429516139
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: City Planning & Urban Development
• Index: Business

This book analyses the cultural politics of urban development in Gwangju, South Korea, and illustrates the implementation of state-led arts-based urban boosterism efforts in the context of political trauma and the desire for economic growth.

The book explores urban development that is complicated by the recent history of democratic uprising in Gwangju, and it examines the dichotomy between cities as growth machines and progressive metropolises. Actor-oriented qualitative research methods are used to show how culture and economies can evolve from territorial conflicts. The author argues that the quest for both growth and social justice can coexist in intertwined ways and create urban development. Moreover, recent events in Gwangju, such as the May 18 Democratic Uprising and massacre, are shown to act as a backdrop for state-led urban boosterism and desire for economic growth at the same time as depicting a resistance to state-corporate marketing plans, which culminates in the eventual emergence of relatively coherent places-of-memory. These convergences and divergences are comparable to the urban boosterism characteristic of Western cities.

The book contributes to the dialogue surrounding geography, urban studies, and postcolonial urban development, and will be of interest to academics working in these fields as well as human geography, planning, urban politics and East Asian studies.

1 Introduction

In developed countries across the Northern Hemisphere, formerly affluent industrial cities have been forced to restructure to maintain urban strength and competitiveness (Griffiths, 1995; Grodach and Loukaitou‐Sideris, 2007). Enter culture. Arts-based urban boosterism as a component of urban development has become critical to the survival of many contemporary cities and the animation of others. Compensating for traditional industries that have become obsolete, highly automated, or lost to competition is not the only reason cities seek out alternative industries. There are cities that never enjoyed the prosperity of an industrial boom that now view culture as an opportunity to thrive. There are still other cities that have been plagued by a negative urban image that crippled the economy. For these cities, culture offers not only hope for an economic upturn but also a road to redemption. Culture is no longer simply an aesthetic. It is now a common-sense approach and sometimes the sole option for achieving economic development, repairing a negative urban image, or both.

One such city that has sought both economic prosperity and re-imaging is the city of Gwangju¹ in the south-western part of South Korea (see Figure 1.1). The city has a history of political activism, and the one event that citizens are proud of, but have also been vilified for, centres on the democratic demonstration of 18 May 1980 (Lewis, 2002). At the time, this event turned the South Korean nation against Gwangju, with the majority only seeing the city’s violent political history that required military intervention and harsh crackdowns. The city’s citizens proudly toiled to preserve the truth of their fight to introduce democracy, even knowing it reinforced the city’s negative urban image that was an impediment to urban development.

As South Korea started to embrace democracy and welcome the concept of globalisation in the 1990s, local elites capitalised on easing restrictions to re-image the city. Recognising that though the May 18 uprising was a blight on Gwangju in South Korea, on the world stage, it was a blight on the national government’s handling of the protest. In an attempt to gloss over the negative, the national government funded an international elitist art event, the Gwangju Biennale. Conflicts and renegotiations between the state-led cultural approach and the local arts-based urban regeneration developed. I use the concept ‘the politics of cultural economy’ to illustrate the dynamics that exist amongst interested parties who possess different agendas that first conflict but with work are then modified and adapted to make an integrated whole (Shin and Stevens, 2013). I focus on the interaction between culture and economy and how this interaction brings about ongoing re-arrangement of the cultural economy and urban development.

Cultural politics of urban development

The cultural economy (Du Gay and Pryke, 2002; Gibson and Kong, 2005; Scott, 1997; amongst others), a strategy that combines culture and economy, is trending in urban and regional policies. This is especially true as cities and their surrounding regions increasingly depend on culture to ensure overall economic well-being. These policies include the utilisation of cultural industries (Du Gay and Pryke, 2002), cultural festivals (Gibson et al., 2010), culture-led urban regeneration (Gainza, 2017), places-of-memory and memorialisation (Charrieras et al., 2018; Shin, 2016), and city branding (Evans, 2015). City branding, for instance, that includes nomenclatures such as ‘City of Culture,’ ‘city of art,’ ‘cultural city,’ ‘creative city,’ or ‘the cultural centre’ promises a renaissance that cities in dire need of economic recovery latch on to. This form of branding that employs cultural heritage to attract international tourism and foreign revenue exemplifies the encounters between culture and economy (Richards, 2000) that will be explored in this book.

Tourism, an increasingly important industry in and of itself, has become the ultimate goal of place-marketing and urban regeneration. The history and memory of a city or area are critical in establishing tourist attractions in place-marketing. Place-marketing as an urban boosterism strategy promotes the resources of cities, regions, and even countries (Loftman and Nevin, 1996) to attract tourists who generate an influx of cash that will revive the economy. Urban regeneration, which gives the city a facelift, is a comprehensive approach to the physical and social innovation of an area (Edwards et al., 2008). Recognising a healthy city requires more than just tourists, this tactic endeavours to entice new citizens and businesses to re-locate there and convince permanent residents to remain.

Urban regeneration evokes images of sites stripped of their gritty character, but not all tourists are interested in shiny newness. Through the late twentieth century and into the early twenty-first century, there has been a noticeable trend in tourism favouring sites of dark memories that include death, disaster, and atrocity (Lennon and Foley, 2000; Stone, 2013). The existence of many places-of-memory (Isaac and Ashworth, 2011) as well as the reason ‘dark tourism’ has evolved as a cultural strategy can be directly attributed to the fascination with dark memories. The memorialisation of tragedy has imbued these sites with a gravitas worthy of destinations for modern pilgrimages (Rojek, 1993). Isaac and Ashworth (2011) argue that, though travelling to places associated with death and suffering is an ancient and often religious practice, dark tourism provides a contemporary twist to pilgrimage tourism. According to Lennon and Foley (2000), a dark tourism site is both the root cause for the circumstances of the late modern world and a significant product of these circumstances. So, though acts of remembrance and memorialisation are highly ritualised and deeply personal and even private tributes, sites of tragedy such as ill-fated or historical battles are being opened to the public and becoming significant tourist attractions (Lennon and Foley, 2000).

While dark memories and places-of-memory have not been actively associated with urban boosterism, dark tourism is an articulated example of the cultural politics of urban development (Winter, 2007). Cultural politics refers to the political dynamics that occur in the process of integrating the cultural aspects and the economic aspects of urban development. The decision-making that goes into determining the interpretation of these sites and events is at the core of cultural politics (Lennon and Foley, 2000). To provide unique experiences that are nonetheless central to urban development projects, sites must have wide appeal. Cultural politics arise from conflicting demands, desires, and interests when creating a city’s image. But while urban development through arts-based urban boosterism has become a notable source of urban fortunes, only a few studies (Baker et al., 2009; Richards and Wilson, 2006) have examined the cultural politics involved in this phenomenon.

Studies on the cultural politics of urban development itself typically show it to be an international manifestation of Western practices that have been replicated but also reworked in the renegotiation of urban development. Despite adopting these general practices, Asian cities’ development is distinct from other parts of the world (Kong, 2007; Yeoh, 2005). One of the most notable distinctions is the state’s dominance in urban development. Asian cities, including those in South Korea, have achieved dramatic economic growth in recent decades under their countries’ state leadership that includes state-run urban development programmes and state funding to support development projects.

The absolute control that national governments wielded to force rapid growth had two notable outcomes. First, they created path-dependence (Yeung, 2009). Since the nation-states managed and micromanaged every detail in the economic development process, Asian cities’ dependence on the state’s support and direction continued even after decentralisation occurred. For example, local politicians and policymakers who actively pursued cultural approaches to promote tourism still looked to the national government to finance their agendas. Second, national governments’ aggressive economic growth policies trickled down to ordinary citizens who started to take responsibility for their own economic development and growth (Saito, 2003). In these so-called developmental states, citizens were already so well-conditioned to accept responsibility for economic development that when the economy started to flag and even crashed, they were fully prepared to step in to stop the decline.

Contested Gwangju

Gwangju has long been well-known for its political history, dating back to demonstrations against Japanese colonial rule in 1929. In 1980, however, peaceful demonstrations protesting the Korean military dictatorship of Chun Doo-hwan following former president Park Chung Hee’s assassination culminated in protests now known as the ‘May 18 Democratic Uprising.’ From a moderately sized student protest emerged the most significant political event in South Korea’s modern history. National troops were sent in to suppress dissidents, but instead of quieting the protest, the use of force incited a violent rebellion, and clashes escalated until a well-armed militia massacred civilians (Yea, 2002).

Figure 1.1 A map of six main regions and main cities of South Korea. The City of Gwangju and the Jeolla province highlighted.

During the uprising and massacre, the army blockaded the city, preventing anyone from exiting or entering Gwangju, and the national government enforced a total media blackout. In a very few cases, foreign media outlets were able to report on the uprising and the savage crackdown (Byun et al., 2003). In South Korea itself, state-controlled media broadcast news sanctioned by the military regime that labelled the event a traitors’ riot, a misnomer that stuck until democratisation in 1990.

The city became infamous as a city of traitors and North Korean sympathisers, which both marred its reputation and isolated it from its neighbours not only politically but also economically. Even after democratisation, Gwangju and the South Jeolla region have been victimised by the most negative aspects of regionalism due to the continuing stigma attached to the uprising. This form of engrained regionalism is indifferent to the pain of emotional and physical scars the victims and their supporters still carry. In recent years, however, Gwangju has had the advantage of urban regeneration projects supported by the state that have led to additional opportunities for urban growth and cultural memorialisation.

Given this city’s history and urban image, it might come as a surprise that my motive for starting this study in fact sprang from my curiosity regarding a cultural event rather than a political uprising. One day in 1995, I learnt that an international high-art exhibition was going to be held in the city of Gwangju. Why Gwangju? Even if one did not take Gwangju’s tainted image into consideration, the city was deemed not large enough or important enough to host an international event. Not to mention that in 1995, international events were generally held in Western world-class cities, such as New York, London, and Paris. If on a rare occasion South Korea was selected to stage an event, Seoul would normally host all and any functions, not an insignificant town like Gwangju. I was baffled by the choice and speculated how a city known for political turmoil could possibly host a festival that would attract international artists to exhibit their work and the audiences to view it all.

As news spread, it turned out that none other than the state, more specifically the Ministry of Culture and Sports (Kwon, 2017), had selected Gwangju to host the art event. After democratisation, Gwangju was the recipient of financial and institutional support from the state as a gesture of restitution for the atrocities suffered under the former military dictatorship. By this time, the nation-state had decentralised and no longer micromanaged local developments, but it still selectively supported the urban development strategies for special economic growth, such as the Biennale in Gwangju. By underwriting this event, the state aimed to put right past wrongs at the same time as improving the country’s standing on the global stage.

Gwangju elites who had been struggling to improve Gwangju’s reputation and promote urban development could now ride the coat-tails of the nation-state’s compensation effort. The prevailing expectation was that this form of urban boosterism would increase income by combining culture and economy, the so-called cultural economy, which I outlined earlier. The cultural approach to the economy began to gain attention in earnest during the first local elections for South Korean city governments that were held in 1995. For both bringing in income and projecting a positive image, local candidates seeking to become elected officials began investigating arts-led urban regeneration projects – a tactic several small- and medium-sized cities worldwide had employed in the late 1990s.

As arts-led urban regeneration projects were introduced, staunch viewpoints on how both the economy and culture should be cultivated have caused incessant struggles. Bureaucrats obsessed with being a world-class city tend to favour an instrumental approach to culture, whereas civil society members prefer a communicative approach focussed on community participation and the inclusion of local history and cultu...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgement
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Theoretical framework: the politics of cultural economy
• 3 Case background: Gwangju’s image and developmentalism
• 4 Instrumentalising art and resistance
• 5 “We are not united any longer”: emerging opportunities and challenges within civil society
• 6 The politics of place-of-memory making
• 7 Making the memory-development nexus
• Index