Understanding local residents’ responses to the development of Mount Gariwang for the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games

ABSTRACT

Formerly a protected area, Mount Gariwang in South Korea was partially bulldozed and developed into an alpine ski venue for the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, displacing local residents. I explore their responses to understand how mega-event-related environmental transformations and inequalities are experienced by differently situated stakeholders. Interviews with twelve local residents indicate that the ‘local response’ was anything but monolithic. Different perceptions about the development were entangled with individual relationships (geographical and metaphorical) to the mountain, and their views of the state, as well as understandings of what it means to be a ‘citizen,’ influenced by broader historical memories. Understanding different stakeholders’ experiences lends insight into how consenting to this development may have been unavoidable for some.

KEYWORDS:

• Inequality
• post-politics
• sport mega-events
• Olympics
• environment
• development

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Census data shows that 24.4% of the population of Jeongseon county (which includes Jeongseon City, Bukpyeong, and Sukam and two other communities) is 65 years or older (Gangwon Statistical Information, 2018). In comparison, this number is 14.3% for the population of South Korea as a whole (Korean Statistical Information Service, 2018).

2. While data gathered from interviews as well as news articles over this time period do indicate that public consultations took place, it is unclear how many public consultations there were, or who attended them – and whether they were by invitation only, or whether they were open to the public.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) under the Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship Doctoral Award and the Michael Smith Foreign Studies Supplement; Research Abroad Awards from The University of British Columbia's School of Kinesiolgy and Go Global; and the Vancouver Korean-Canadian Scholarship Foundation.

Notes on contributors

Liv Yoon

Liv Yoon is a postdoctoral fellow at The Earth Institute at Columbia University.