Cultural politics and contested place identity

This paper considers festivals as place-contingent cultural politics and examines them as political instruments and promotional products at the same time. Conflicts between globalization, tradition, and place identity are discussed by examining the Kangnung Dano festival in Korea. Findings suggest that the contested meaning of place leads to the reconstruction of regional identities and the reframing of symbolic identities. Kangnung Dano is read as a "cultural framework" reflecting simplistic and dualistic classifications of festivals into sacred and secular, public and private, and social conflicts and cohesion through place identification. The paper proposes that regional identity has been dynamically constructed and is re-constructing due to contested meanings of place.