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Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2021

Urban Mountains in South Korea as Green Recreational Spaces : the Online Writing of the Landscape

Résumé

Mountains, san (산), are omnipresent in Korea covering seventy percent of the territory. They are part of the urban spaces, neighboring city housings. San of all sizes and importance - may it be the hill behind one’s home, dwitsan (뒷산), or the celebrated mountain with a « name », myeongsan (명산) - are seen as natural abode and green forests. Often, these mountains are also public parks (either city parks or national parks) and are recreational spaces for city-dwellers who strive to escape the busy city life in search of some green and quiet spaces with « clean » and fresh air. Mountains provide a point of view on the city by enabling people to take some heights, and experience the « natural » environment around the city. During the covid-19 crisis, many national parks have closed for some time to avoid people gathering, especially during the cherry blossom period. At that time, mountains were a desired space often pictured in blog posts as a way-out of the crowded city and the crisis. This presentation shows the result of a fieldwork for my doctoral thesis in cultural geography conducted in Gyeyryong mountain, which is located in the Chungnam Province, between Daejeon, in the East, Gongju, in the North West, and Gyeryong City, in the South. Field materials comprise interviews with hikers of a Daejeon hiking association, Daejeondullesangiritgi (대전둘레산길잇기) whose activities depend on a community blog. This study is also the result of a research conducted online on blogs where wide materials of photography combined with texts were analyzed. The forms and the functions of the different blog posts on hiking are put in perspective with regards to the notion of landscape : landscape, which is generally defined as the visual aspects, the appearance of the land perceived by an observer - a singular individual whose experience is always inscribed in a brief moment of contemplation and in a specific geographical place. Some characteristics of the landscape are its aesthetic, sensitive, and even emotional dimensions. Individual perceptions of the landscape seem to merge in a collective one when one analyzes the forms and contents of the blog posts. This study wants to seize the mountainous landscape as perceived, photographed, and written by the city-dwellers to better understand their symbolic relation to the mountain. How the blogs, which amount to online travelogues or tour journals account for the bloggers’ perception of the landscape they have walked through ?At the end, the combination of photography and text is used by bloggers to relate personal experience of a place recreating and describing some impressions; it is also used to provide itinerary and orientation guidelines to pave the way for the future hikers resulting in a visual promotion of a place. The guidelines and the “to do list” with the “places to see” provided online by the bloggers seem to induce a more homogeneous and collective way to practice the mountainous space: the individual appreciation of the landscape becomes a collective spectacle.
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Dates et versions

hal-04086365 , version 1 (02-05-2023)

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  • HAL Id : hal-04086365 , version 1

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Youna SON. Urban Mountains in South Korea as Green Recreational Spaces : the Online Writing of the Landscape. 30ème colloque de l’AKSE (Association for Korean Studies in Europe), Oct 2021, La Rochelle, France. ⟨hal-04086365⟩
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