Korean Studies Research Seminar #4

The Korean Studies Research Seminar aims to bring together staff and students at LIAS and beyond around Korea-centered topics. Presentations contain ongoing research, reading of papers, discussion of project outcomes, and other research related matters.

On Wednesday, October 25, 2023, from 11:15-13:00, in Lipsius 2.05, the first session of the Korean Studies Research Seminar in 2023-2024 will take place. You are very welcome to attend this seminar. Registration is not necessary.

Hyojin Pak (Ph.D. Candidate at Leiden University)

The Politics of Resettlement: Waste, Urban Poor, and the Transformation of Nanjido

This talk unpacks the history of Nanjido, which is commonly known as the World Cup Park in western Seoul, encompassing its past as a landfill and a lived space, and its current status as an ecological park. I examine the housing history of waste pickers as a lens to reveal the neglected dimension of Nanjido’s historical narrative. Focusing on two resettlement processes, one occurring in 1984 and another following the closure of the landfill in 1993, I analyze their impact on waste pickers’ living conditions and the erasure of their presence. Utilizing visual materials including landfill photographs, aerial images, and hand-drawn shanty town maps, I retrieve the traces of human inhabitation and waste landscape and show how the transformation of Nanjido from one habitat to another discarded its memory from the physical space and the broader urban landscape.

Feel free to contact Elmer Veldkamp (e.veldkamp@hum.leidenuniv.nl) for questions and details if needed. Future research seminars are scheduled for November 13 and December 13, so stay tuned!