@article{ART003387584},
author={Kwon, Yongseok},
title={What is the Living Sphere? : Epistemological Reexamination and a Relational Framework},
journal={The Korea Spatial Planning Review},
issn={1229-8638},
year={2026},
volume={130},
pages={133-148},
doi={10.15793/kspr.2026.130..007}
TY - JOUR
AU - Kwon, Yongseok
TI - What is the Living Sphere? : Epistemological Reexamination and a Relational Framework
JO - The Korea Spatial Planning Review
PY - 2026
VL - 130
IS - null
PB - 국토연구원
SP - 133
EP - 148
SN - 1229-8638
AB - This study reexamines, at the epistemological level, how the concept of the "living sphere" (saenghwalgwon, 生活圈) is deployed in Korean spatial policy discourse under the population-decline agenda. Its scope is deliberately delimited: it does not redefine the operational unit of the "planned living sphere," but reopens its categorical premises. The paper argues that the currently prevailing usage—organized around simulation-based catchment analyses—converges, across heterogeneous methodological lineages, on a tacit ontology of space as functionally partitioned exteriority and subject as averaged mover. By intersecting phenomenological, lifeworld-sociological, and critical-spatial lineages, and by mobilizing literary vignettes and contemporary Korean cases, the paper proposes the "relational living sphere" (gwangyejeok saenghwalgwon, 關係的 生活圈) as a complementary framework organized along three axes: embodied rootedness, relational extensibility, and temporal thickness. Its function is to make quantitative models’ ontological premises visible and to specify their division of labor at each stage of the master-planning cycle.
KW - saenghwalgwon(living sphere);relational living sphere;spatial sociology;conceptual framework; philosophical and sociological reconceptualization
DO - 10.15793/kspr.2026.130..007
ER -
Kwon, Yongseok. (2026). What is the Living Sphere? : Epistemological Reexamination and a Relational Framework. The Korea Spatial Planning Review, 130, 133-148.
Kwon, Yongseok. 2026, "What is the Living Sphere? : Epistemological Reexamination and a Relational Framework", The Korea Spatial Planning Review, vol.130, pp.133-148. Available from: doi:10.15793/kspr.2026.130..007
Kwon, Yongseok "What is the Living Sphere? : Epistemological Reexamination and a Relational Framework" The Korea Spatial Planning Review 130 pp.133-148 (2026) : 133.
Kwon, Yongseok. What is the Living Sphere? : Epistemological Reexamination and a Relational Framework. 2026; 130 133-148. Available from: doi:10.15793/kspr.2026.130..007
Kwon, Yongseok. "What is the Living Sphere? : Epistemological Reexamination and a Relational Framework" The Korea Spatial Planning Review 130(2026) : 133-148.doi: 10.15793/kspr.2026.130..007
Kwon, Yongseok. What is the Living Sphere? : Epistemological Reexamination and a Relational Framework. The Korea Spatial Planning Review, 130, 133-148. doi: 10.15793/kspr.2026.130..007
Kwon, Yongseok. What is the Living Sphere? : Epistemological Reexamination and a Relational Framework. The Korea Spatial Planning Review. 2026; 130 133-148. doi: 10.15793/kspr.2026.130..007
Kwon, Yongseok. What is the Living Sphere? : Epistemological Reexamination and a Relational Framework. 2026; 130 133-148. Available from: doi:10.15793/kspr.2026.130..007
Kwon, Yongseok. "What is the Living Sphere? : Epistemological Reexamination and a Relational Framework" The Korea Spatial Planning Review 130(2026) : 133-148.doi: 10.15793/kspr.2026.130..007
