SUMMARY
Restructuring Spatial Structure at Village Level through Saemaul Undong
Jin-Kwang SO, Sun-Hee KIM
1. Introduction
Since m id-20th century, there has been opinions that consistently call for recovery of com m unity, w hich w as dam aged by the industrialization through last tw o or three centuries. A s for Korea, due to the industrialization that w as prom oted since 1960s, rural villages lost vitality and m oreover urban areas had to face the problem s that w ere incurred from all sort of overcrow d. Therefore, the gap betw een the urban and rural areas w as increased. Political and social costs from this kind of gap becam e burden to state-run.
Due to this background, Saem aeul Undong initiated from 1970 w as at first to elim inate the rural's poverty. H ow ever, this Saem aul Undong also unintentionally built com m unity governance and accum ulated social capital. In 2002, U N ESC AP pointed out Korea's Saem aeul U ndong experience as best practice and also is trying to spread this Seam aul Undong to other developing countries to solve the rural's poverty problem s and to strengthen rural villagers'
capability.
In this context, this research is to analyze how 1970's Saem aeul U ndong affected the change of spatial elem ents at village level from the points, lines and surface point of view . This research is to obtain processing logic that intermediate space and human activity and thus can be useful in building practice reasoning in the field of com m unity developm ent.
2. A pproach and m ethodology
Korea’s Saem aeul Undong is regarded as a successful and creative com m unity developm ent m odel that both breaks from W estern style and m obilizes the m axim um potential at village level. Lists of the com ponents that m ade Saem aeul Undong successful are different depending on scholars but norm ally those com ponents like national self-aw areness, providing m otivation for resident participation, adopting new education system depending on situation, and leadership that has am bition and belief used to be pointed out as com m on successful factors of Saem aul U ndong. These factors confirm that Saem aeul U ndong not only is not one-off business but also can be applied to any situations. In 1970s of Korea, only industrialization prevailed to prom ote national econom ic developm ent, but as a result, disharm onies betw een urban and rural and industry and agriculture occurred. At the sam e time, these incurred urban and rural problem s. Eventually, som e burden w as put on national m anagem ent. Due to these kinds of problem s, K orean governm ent becam e interested in rural problem s w hile pursuing industrialization enthusiastically.
Especially, traditional Korean village specified as blood tied local com munity m akes the com m unity’s group conflict recognition and securem ent of solution difficult that national developm ent’s propulsion w as decreasing during the process of m odernization. Fortunately, Saem aeul U ndong started from 1970 by the governm ent regarded a village as one space unit and supplied it w ith 335 bags of cem ent to m ake the village residents form co-assets. By doing so, blood tied village could transit to the com m unity, thereby contributing in adopting innovation process even in rural villages.
During this process, com munity governance was built, and the rural village’s
spatial structure that had been set for a long tim e could be changed. This spatial structure of rural villages becam e the catalyst for m ediating the activities of all residents in rural society. Therefore, other than establishm ent of the base of village, im provement of living conditions, and incom e growth, Saem aeul Undong tried to prom ote each resident of diligence, self-help and cooperative spirit. By doing so, Saem aeul Undong contributed to creating the managem ent system that can foster co-prosperity of rural villages. In short, Saem aeul U ndong aim ed at constructing co-prosperity of village’s restoration.
In this context, this study selects four case-study rural villages considering availability of data and accessibility of field survey. These case-study rural villages are aim ing to analyze the change of spatial elem ents such as point, line, and surface through Saem aeul Undong. This kind of research w ill be used as basis w hen Saem aeul Undong applies to different situations. This research is proceeded w ith field study, expert consultation, interview s w ith the village leaders at that tim e, and em pirical study simultaneously. By analyzing the village m eeting docum ents and m inutes or records, each space elem ents’ changing circum stances w as put together.
3. Findings and im plications
This study w ith four case-study villages is approached by three spatial elem ents like point, line, and surface. The spatial elem ents w hen evaluating the results of hum an activity m ay be used as objective indicators, but rather on the im pact of hum an activity such as the background should be considered. In those four case-study rural villages, the change of spatial elem ents by Saem aeul U ndong asserts that Saem aeul Undong in those days w as not carried out by uniform instructions given by the central governm ent. A dditionally, in each village, different environm ent, and the differences in project inform ation and priority prove this assertion.
The change of spatial elem ent in case-study village such as point, line, and surface promoted the residents’ joint activities, and influenced potential in whole village by m ediating and spreading Saem aeul Undong to all over the country.
N am ely, Saem aeul Undong tried to connect spatial elem ents, to change som e
points relating each resident’s activity w ith lines(village roads etc.). To illustrate, w ith Saem aul Undong village access roads, sm all river, drainage, w aterw ay, bridges and farm roads were built, expanded, repaired, or packed. These spatial elem ents connected resident w ith resident, and village w ith village, individuals w ith group, and group w ith group, eventually m aking the resource flow and com m unication sm ooth.
In four case-study rural villages, through Saem aeul U ndong, those spatial elem ent’s change in point, line, and surface are closely related to the Saem aeul U ndong’s propulsion at that tim e. Especially, it can be inferred that Saem aeul U ndong, in other w ords, a com prehensive com m unity developm ent practice, could be consistently pursued by interrelating spatial com ponent’s change in point, line, and surface through specific projects. M ental enlightenm ent through Saem aeul education alone is difficult to prom ote specific projects steadily.
Visualizing perform ance step by step w ith change of spatial elem ents, securing the next step’s attitude change and pow er of execution can be said as the successful factors of Saem aeul Undong.
Practical usefulness and policy im plications of this study can be sum marized as follow s. Firstly, research on the change of spatial elem ent’s at village level through Saem aeul project allow s us to obtain the evidence so that our experience can be propagated to the international com m unity. This concrete and tangible spatial structure’s reform will provide the basic data in order to make our success exam ple as global standard. The study regarding the change of the spatial param eters im plies logical connection about how Saem aeul Undong solved rural poverty problem , strengthened the rural residents’ capacities, form ed social capital in rural com m unity, and built com m unity’s governance system .
Secondly, this kind of specific research m ight provide the evidence to solve our current issue using the 1970’s Saem aeul Undong’s experience. The m ain and m ost im portant issue in m anaging spatial structure in the 21st C entury used to be said "rebuilding com m unity" by building local governance and accum ulating social capital. In this context, by evaluating the experience of Saem aul Undong in Korea in 1970s in local governance and social capital, the m ethodology of Saem aul U ndong can be m odified to fit the other situations in