Journal of the Korean Geographical Society ISSN:1225-6633(Print) 대한지리학회지

This paper challenges the dichotomy of First World political ecology and the Third World political ecology by discussing political ecology agendas that are specific in Newly Industrialized Countries (NICs). In the course of achieving rapid economic growth, NICs have shown particular socioeconomic developmental paths, which also have mediated human-environment interactions therein. Institutional and ecological legacies of the developmental state penetrate through NICs-specific socioeconomic and ecological conditions. In order to illustrate the particularities of political ecology agendas in NICs, this work examines a nature-based tourism in South Korea called the Jeju Olle Trail, with the themes of power struggles between the state and non-state actors in resource management, construction of nature, and shifting rural lands and ensuing class struggles. By doing so, the paper aims: 1) to challenge the dichotomy of the First and the Third World political ecologies, 2) to explore particularities of political ecology in NICs; and thereby 3) to suggest NICs political ecology to the discipline of political ecology. The findings suggest that NICs does not fit in either the First World political ecology or the Third World political ecology because these countries are “in transition” and “in-between” the First and Third World. NICs political ecology will expand the scope of political ecology, when its NICs specific contexts are examined based on lessons learned from both the First and the Third World political ecology.