지역과 장소의 경계－강원도 천주교와 문화 공동체－

Abstract

This study examines the conceptual meaning of the region with a focus on Gangwon province’s Catholicism and discusses the way to research local culture and to promote it. Local culture should be understood through historical and emotional characteristics that are not reduced to a physical place. Although the physical basis of the region must be acknowledged, the visibility of the region functions as a material foundation that enables local residents and visitors to get the experiences of the imagination and emotional projection. A region is a historical and cultural space that opens the horizon of existence. In this perspective, this study provides an overview of the historicity of Gangwon province’s Catholicism. Even if Gangwon province’s Catholicism appears to be merely a minor branch of history, it is in reality an individual totality through which the history of East-West relation and the Joseon Catholic penetrates. Gangwon province’s Catholicism, having the reputation of the first religious village in Korea, represents a series of processes that reach the institutionalization of Pungsuwon, passing through the ordeal of persecution and the strengthening of the potential in Kyo-u-chon. On the other hand, as Gangwon province’s Catholicism connotes a risk of being sunk in the dilemma of cultural universalism and cultural relativism, it calls for the certain kinds of future values ​​and ethical attitudes related to local culture. In order to solve the dilemma of duality between center and periphery, cultural universalism and cultural relativism, this study proposes a cultural community based on the concept of cultural resources, avoiding the concept of cultural identity. A cultural community is a kind of network that revitalizes various cultural resources and, therefore, expands their vitality by bringing them face to face. A cultural community based on the concept of resources has the function of strengthening the cultural ecosystem because it is a dialogue community that summons and activates each cultural resource to each other.