난민 문제로 보는 섬성(Island Identity) 변화에 대한 인문학적 성찰 －모던(Modern)과 경계 개념을 중심으로－

Abstract

The islanders have been so far treated as refugees within the frame of the conventional of thinking the island as ‘the most frontier area of frontier areas.’ This study examined that this experience is being strengthened in The Age of the New Normal through the history of Jeju Island, which analyzed the time called ‘modern’ and space called ‘boundary’. In the regions of the pre-modern East Asia, the island was recognized and disciplined as the boundary beyond the natural boundary of ‘the sea’. The boundary beyond this boundary was alienated as the periphery, but it was also a place which the central influence could hardly have influence on. The islanders, who made this space a place of life, were the subjects of double exploitation and those of experiencing transnation. During the so-called modern period when Western imperialism invaded East Asia, the new boundary was laid over by Western imperialism. Thus, the island, which became boundary on the border, became the battleground for the initiative over the mainland, and the islanders became refugees in the modern sense. After the modern era, which pursued American modernization along with the establishment of a modern nationstate, the island was no longer functioning as boundary due to the ideals of globalization. However, as confirmed by the recent Jeju craze, as the distance between the island and the land is compressed, the function as a boundary to reproduce the time and space of the past is strengthened. As a result, refugeeization of islanders and migration of refugees accelerate. In order to solve this problem, it must be prioritized to deviate from the modern concept of time and space as well as the conventional thinking of seeing the island as the boundary of the periphery