This paper is a critical analysis of the political conflicts behind the restoration of the urban stream called'Cheonggyecheon' in Seoul. The conflicts arose between the Seoul City government and the coalitionof NGOs around different ideologies of nature: environmental managerialism vs. deep ecologism.The paper dissects the process of reinventing Cheonggyecheon into a natural stream and, in doingso, discloses the exclusion of the deep ecologists by the hegemonic environmental managerialists. Thisprocess was further reinforced by the subjugation of the restoration project to the political purpose of theinitiator and the outcome was a lack of ecological authenticity in the restored stream. This is a historicallypersisting Cheonggyecheon phenomenon that reflects human attempts to rule over each other throughnature.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Michael Cho (2010) studied this question.