This paper explores how traditional environmental concepts operate as a form of truth environmentality in conservation governance. Drawing on ethnographic research on tidal flat tourism in Jeungdo, South Korea, it focuses on the traditional concept of saengmyung (life) as a truth claim that shapes tidal flat conservation by rendering particular human-tidal flat relations morally intelligible and difficult to contest. This paper makes two main arguments. First, it demonstrates that saengmyung functions as a form of truth environmentality by framing tidal flats as habitats of life deserving respect, thereby legitimising conservation-oriented conduct. Second, it shows that saengmyung-based truth environmentality simultaneously stabilises and destabilises conservation governance: while it supports biodiversity conservation and recognition of local fishing practices, it also legitimises tourists’ leisure-catching activities, generating tensions within conservation regimes. This paper relates these ambivalent effects to the operation of truth environmentality within specific institutional settings, and to its mechanism that organises fields of judgement, rather than directly prescribing behaviours. By foregrounding both the governing potential and vulnerability of culturally grounded environmental truths, this paper contributes to recent work on truth and multiple environmentalities.
AgrawalA (2005) Environmentality: Technologies of Government and the Making of Subjects. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
2.
AstaburuagaJLeszczynskiAMartinME, et al. (2023) The multiple environmentalities of conservation mapping in Patagonia-Aysén. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space6(3): 1940–1965.
3.
BlaserM (2009) The threat of the Yrmo: The political ontology of a sustainable hunting program. American Anthropologist111(1): 10–20.
4.
BruunOKallandA (1995) Asian Perceptions of Nature: A Critical Approach. London: Routledge.
ChoiMA (2020) Multiple environmental subjects: Governmentalities of ecotourism development in Jeungdo, South Korea. Geoforum110: 77–86.
7.
ChoiYR (2017) The blue economy as governmentality and the making of new spatial rationalities. Dialogues in Human Geography7(1): 37–41.
8.
ChoiYR (2019) Profitable tidal flats, governable fishing communities: Assembling tidal flat fisheries in post-crisis South Korea. Political Geography72: 20–30.
9.
ChoiYR (2023) The colonizers, the developmental state, and uneven geography of development: Reclamation of South Korea's tidal flats, 1900s-1980s. Journal of Historical Geography82: 23–37.
10.
CollinsYA (2020) How Redd+ governs: Multiple forest environmentalities in Guyana and Suriname. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space3(2): 323–345.
11.
Cortes-VazquezJARuiz-BallesterosE (2018) Practising nature: A phenomenological rethinking of environmentality in natural protected areas in Ecuador and Spain. Conservation and Society16(3): 232–242.
12.
DeanM (2010) Governmentality: Power and Rule in Modern Society, 2nd ednLondon: Sage.
13.
DevallBSessionsG (1985) Deep Ecology. Layton, UT: Gibbs Smith.
14.
FarquharJZhangQ (2012) Ten Thousand Things: Nurturing Life in Contemporary Beijing. New York: Zone Books.
15.
FletcherR (2010) Neoliberal environmentality: Towards a poststructuralist political ecology of the conservation debate. Conservation and Society8(3): 171–181.
16.
FletcherR (2014) Romancing the Wild: Cultural Dimensions of Ecotourism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
FletcherR (2020) Diverse ecologies: Mapping complexity in environmental governance. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space3(2): 481–502.
19.
FletcherRCortes-VazquezJA (2020) Beyond the green panopticon: New directions in research exploring environmental governmentality. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space3(2): 289–299.
20.
FoucaultM (2008) The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978–1979. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.
21.
GordonC (1991) Governmental Rationality: An Introduction. In: BurchellGGordonCMillerP (eds) The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality: With Two Lectures by and an Interview with Michel Foucault. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1–52.
22.
HanHS (2010) The necessity of policies to promote tidal flat fisheries and future directions. Fisheries Policy Research8: 5–10. (in Korean).
23.
IngoldT (2000) The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill. Oxford: Routledge.
24.
JooYS (2020) The Body-Saeng/Myung worldview: A Saengmyung Movement of Resistance and Dreaming. Seoul: Mosim and Salim Research Institute. (in Korean).
25.
KimJ (2010) Sociology of Korean Fishing Villages. Seoul: Minsogwon Publications. (in Korean).
26.
KimJ (2012) A study on the re-understanding of fishing village and the promotion of recognition about tidal-flat. Minsok Yeongu25: 19–49. (in Korean).
27.
KimJ (2021) The transformation of traditional fishing villages as a response to a series of crises. In: SongKT (eds) The Life of Fishermen and Their Livelihood Practices (MOF Marine Culture Research Series Vol.6). Sejong: MOF, pp. 132–151. (in Korean)
28.
KimSJ (2024) Nature-culture integrated conservation and management centred on world heritage sites for sustainable developpment: A case study of getbol, Korean tidal flats. Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea27(3): 223–239. (in Korean).
29.
KoBS (2007) The impact of catching practice to getbol ecologies. In: The Proceedings for the National Workshop for Getbol Catching Experiences. Gunsan City, Jeollanam-do, South Korea: National Institute of Fisheries Science. June 2007.
30.
KohCH (2001) The Korean Tidal Flats: Environment, Biology, and Human. Seoul: Seoul National University Press. (in Korean).
31.
KohCHRyuJSKhimJS (2010) The Saemangeum: History and controversy. Journal of the Korean Society for Marine Environment & Energy13(4): 327–334.
32.
Korea Tourism Organization (2025) National Tourism Statistics. Available at: http:// datalab.visitkorea.or.kr.
33.
KuDW (2009) The emergence of ecological alternative movement in Korea. Korean Social Science Journal36(2): 1–32.
LeeKSParkJSChaOS (2001) The Origin of Korean Saengmyung Thought. Seoul: Ehwa University Press.
36.
LeeSY (2012) Political implication of ecological concerns and movements. Journal of Social Thoughts and Culture26: 289–323.
37.
Maguire-RajpaulVASandbrookCMcdermottC, et al. (2022) Climate-smart cocoa governance risks entrenching old hegemonies in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana: A multiple environmentality analysis. Geoforum130: 78–91.
38.
McCormackF (2017) Private Oceans: The Enclosure and Marketisation of the Seas. London: Pluto Books.
39.
MillerPRoseN (1990) Governing economic life. Economy and Society19(1): 1–31.
40.
MiltonK (2002) Loving Nature: Towards an Ecology of Emotion. Abingdon: Routledge.
41.
Ministry of Ocean and Fisheries (2004) Children’s Getbol Experience Workbook. Muan: Muan County and MOF.
42.
MontesJBhattaraiSR (2018) Buddhist biopower? Variegated governmentality in Bhutan’s gross national happiness agenda. Geoforum; Journal of Physical, Human, and Regional Geosciences96: 207–216.
43.
MontesJTsheringSPhuntshoT, et al. (2020) Cosmological subjectivities: Exploring ‘truth’ environmentalities in the Haa highlands of Bhutan. Conservation and Society18(4): 355–365.
44.
OhJS, 2010. Salim, Process of Life: An Asian Postcolonial Ecofeminist Theology. PhD Thesis, Graduate Division of Religion. Drew University, USA.
45.
ParkJM (2013) Schweitzer’s ‘reverence for life’ ethic and traditional eastern thought. Eco17(2): 109–143.
46.
RutherfordS (2011) Governing the Wild: Ecotours of Power. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
47.
SchodererM (2023) Overlapping governmentalities and the cosmo-politics of Mongolian water-and mining scapes. Geoforum145: 103830.
48.
TuckerMEWilliamsDR (1997) Buddhism and Ecology: The Interconnection of Dharma and Deeds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
49.
ValladaresCBoelensR (2019) Mining for mother earth: Governmentalities, sacred waters and nature’s rights in Ecuador. Geoforum100: 68–79.
YoudelisM (2013) The competitive (dis)advantages of ecotourism in Nothern Thailand. Geoforum50: 161–171. 10.1016/j.geoforum.2013.09.007.
52.
Youdelis M (2020) Multiple environmentalities and post-politicization in a Canadian Mountain Park. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space 3: 346–364. https://doi.org/10.1177/2514848619879
