'섬 정체성'의 지속과 변화

Abstract

This article examines the cultural characteristics and meanings of the definition and use of the concepts of ‘island(섬, seom)’ and ‘islandness[섬성(섬性), seomsung)]’ by critically examining the characteristics and meanings of ‘island discourses’ related to ‘island’ and ‘islandness’. To this purpose, I would like to seek theoretical and methodological clues and ways to examine the continuity and change of ‘island identity’ in depth, focusing on the concept of island and islandness, and sustainability, and provide philosophical clues for humanistic reflections on the characteristics and use of these concepts. In particular, this article proposes the concept of ‘islandness’ as a concept which encompasses ‘island discourses’ and focuses on the cultural characteristics and meanings of ‘island discourses’. This article also aims to understand the interrelationship between these concepts in the context of islands and seas by interrelating the concept of ‘island’, ‘islandness’, ‘island humanities terrain’, and ‘sustainability’ based on a new definition of the concepts of island and islandness to understand the continuity and change of ‘island identity’. To this end, this article tried to actively utilize the concept of ‘island’ and ‘islandness’. ‘Islandness’ is a term and concept that can usually be translated into ‘islandness’,‘island identity’, and ‘islandness’. These diverse and complex island discourses are, in fact, manipulated and transformed for political, economic, and social purposes because the reality of islandness does not exist. Therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to the process in which island discourses are produced, distributed, and consumed rather than the reality of island discourses. This aspect of islandness is overlooked because island discourses actually hinder the understanding of the phenomenon and perception of islands and seas in connection with land. In this respect, island discourses often result in not properly embodying the characteristics and meanings of islands and seas. In particular, these island discourses are mainly produced, distributed, and consumed in a direction that is not irrelevant to the maximization of political and economic benefits of a centralized state and society centered on land and inland, which paradoxically results in the reality of being alienated from the central governmental and national interest and support, and deprived of its own and independent cultural rights of islanders in islands and seas in contemporary Korean society. Depending on how the concept of islandness is defined, it is intended to reveal that these various and diverse discourses on island and islandness are in fact proceeding in the direction of maximizing the political and economic benefits of the land-centered central government or the state by paying attention to the process of manipulating and transforming various discourses for political, economic, and social purposes, despite the fact that the entity of islandness does not exist or it is fluid and flexible according to changes in the times and spatial conditions of islandness. To this end, this article intends to discuss the existing discourses on island related to ‘islandness’ under the premise that it is essential and urgent to consider what cultural characteristics and meanings are in the context of contemporary Korean society.