Cultivating settler colonial space in Korea: Public works and the urban environment under Japanese rule

Abstract

This article makes a case for reviewing Japanese colonial rule in Korea through the lens of settler colonialism, arguing that Japanese settlers and colonial officials used public works projects to reshape Korean landscapes into settler colonial spaces in the name of cultivating Japanese claims to ownership of Korean territory and displacing Korean inhabitants. Together, street improvements and legal codes were designed to displace Korean residents by physically dismantling their homes to make way for widened roads, tearing down those structures that did not conform to new building standards, and removing residents who did not abide by settler ways of life. Reconsidering Japanese urban development in colonial Seoul through settler colonialism suggests that Japanese public works projects were intended not only to exploit Korean resources, justify Japanese colonial rule, or promote assimilation, but to perpetuate Japanese control of Korean space.