Abstract

During the late 1960s, South Korean state engineers from construction agencies promoted large dam-building projects with the notion that their expertise would allow them to carve nature for the benefit of the nation. Hidden under this audacious declaration to manipulate nature was the precarious identitymaking of hydrological engineers from academia who contributed to rationalizing dam construction. This paper shows that the uncertain identity of hydrological engineers resonated with their position in a developing South Korea between the colonial legacy and the Cold War influx of Western knowledge. While working closely with state engineers, academic engineers had the distinct goal of establishing a unique Korean research program, overcoming both colonial river management and the Western methods on which it stood. This paper argues that carving nature ultimately concealed the haphazardness of the national water resources development plan as manifested in the tensions between state and academic engineers.