보호에서 배제로: 박정희 정부 시기 경계인으로서의 화전민 표상과 화전정리사업

Abstract

This article argues that the driving force behind the Korean government's Fire-field removal project, conducted from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, was not forest protection but the discourse of civilization and the Cold War. Initially, in the 1940s and 1950s, the ROK government aimed to protect these residents through constitutional laws that enlarged the size of mountain fields they could possess. However, the illegal logging incident in 1964 in Jirisan Mountain raised doubts about the overall protection discourse toward Fire-field farmers. Subsequently, in 1966, the Fire-field removal project was initiated, citing mountain farmers as the cause of various environmental issues and deforestation. Against media and on-site government officials doubting the legitimacy of the project, it gained momentum with the infiltration of North Korean special forces into Uljin and Samcheok, along with the completion of the Gyeongbu Expressway in the 1970s, which linked the project to discourses of civilization and the Cold War. Consequently, the National Assembly began to suspect mountain residents as potential North Korean sympathizers, and President Park Chung-hee labeled them uncivilized in a speech. As a result, mountain farmers were portrayed as straddling the boundaries between civilization and non-civilization, and between anti-communist and pro-communist sentiments. Officials utilized this perception to forcibly relocate mountain farmers from their homes. The Fire-field removal project, which lasted for an extended period, served as an alarming example of how the state used forest protection as a pretext to eliminate some of its citizens.