Session proposal: Interrogating East Asian Developmental Urbanism through a Postcolonial Perspective

Organised by Do Young Oh, Seoul National University

East Asia's urbanisation has long been celebrated as a developmental triumph, with cities such as Seoul, Shanghai, and Singapore symbolising rapid industrialisation, modernisation, and global integration. Yet, the prevailing narrative often reduces these cities to mere outcomes of state-led economic strategies, including the concept of the developmental state, a dominant framework for understanding the East Asian urbanisation process. Such a perspective overlooks the complex sociocultural, historical, and political contexts that shape their development.

While there have been emerging attempts to conceptualise the process as more diverse, complicated, interactive, and multi-scalar (see Bunnell and Goh, 2017; Roy and Ong, 2011; Datta and Shaban, 2017, for example), there remains a need to foster a more plural and nuanced understanding of East Asian urbanisation processes.

This session adopts the lens of postcolonial urbanism to critically examine East Asian developmental urbanism, with a particular focus on case studies from South Korea. It interrogates the interplay between state-driven urban policies, various formal and informal, elite and non-elite actors, and the lingering impacts of colonial and Cold War histories. Specifically, the session explores:

• How postcolonial identities shape contested urban spaces, revealing the imprint of colonial histories in contemporary cities.

• How informal urban practices intersect with state-driven policies, challenging traditional understandings of the developmental state.

By bridging perspectives from urban studies, postcolonial theory, and political economy, this session fosters a nuanced understanding of diverse urban processes. It also seeks to promote dialogue with other cities and regions globally by reframing East Asian urbanisation through a postcolonial lens.