ABSTRACT
This chapter focusses on the last stage of the politics of cultural economy. In the place-of-memory making, the victims’ families emerged as one of the main actors in the competition of “who is entitled to speak about the past?” This chapter demonstrates that, in the case of Gwangju, tensions erupted between a group of professionals, including architects, planners and academics, who were focussed on place-making for the future, and those who continued to focus on the memory of Gwangju and the victims of the 1980 military crackdown (i.e. family and friends of those who were killed). The construction of the Asia Culture Centre provoked controversy regarding the construction site. When building a centre for future generations was offered as part of a compensation package, those able to adjust to the changes gained control over their own future. Mourning itself came to be appropriated and was turned into value-generating urban symbols. But in the end, the victims’ families’ resistance to the demolition of the Byeolgwan turned attention back to the right to mourn and symbolise tragedy, an entitlement usually always reserved for the victims of tragedy, and reclaimed the right of place-making for the future.
