Jeju has spent the last 10 years making suggestions and trying to implement new visions and policies for the future of Jeju. These are: “Jeju Free International City,” in 2002, “Jeju Island of World Peace,” in 2005, “Jeju Special Self-Governing Province,” in 2006, and “Jeju World Environmental Hub,” in 2007. While these are seeking for visions that are challenging, dramatic and future-oriented, they are movements that undertake contradictive goals, for example, democracy, peace, well-being, ecology, and prosperity on the multiple space of East Asia-Korean Peninsula-South Korea-Jeju Island. These visions are pursued with sincere but fierce debate on the perspectives, feasibilities, and methods. There are a lot of trials and errors, followed by upgraded reflection as well as alternatives put forward by the Jeju residents.
This article is an attempt to tap into the feasibility of new and transformative vision of future Jeju while reflectively examining the last 10 years’ performance and awareness of the Jeju people. This relies on the participation and responsiveness of Jeju’s grassroots for measuring the outcomes of official visions as well as exploring the possibility of alternative visions of Jeju since any visions would doom to fail unless the supports of grassroots were mobilized. The article concludes that Jeju is sailing towards the future as an ‘Island of Eco-Peace,’ in which a lot of social-economical-ecological problems of poverty, discrimination, repressiveness, pollution, etc. will be tackled, reduced and resolved under the flag of grassroots democracy and social economy.