식민지 시대 기생 연구(Ⅱ) -‘기생조합’의 성격을 중심으로-

Abstract

The Kisaeng(female entertainer) group who were given work of performing music and dance in official and private banquets in Choseon period shows how the female body in a lower class could be appropriated through the social system. However, after the abolishment of the traditional Kisaeng system in modern period, Kisaeng group underwent a great change, being redistributed in the Japanese colonial policies and capitalistic pleasure business. Most of all, the Kisaeng group were reconstructed in a new management system called "Kisaeng association" and under the control of the colonial power, they were mobilized in an official events and degraded to a kind of waitress in a restaurant where they were forced to sell the artistic achievements as well as to serve the table meeting. However, inside the activities of Kisaeng association, there were found the self-consciousness of Kisaeng as a professional performer and counteraction against the colonial power and groping for their social identity when they were faced with the hostile eye of the Korean nationalists or torchbearers. Futhermore, they presents the collective reaction against the administrators of the association and other organization like a restaurant when they were required to protect their own interest through a labor strike. The autonomous activities of Kisaeng in the Kisaeng association were close to the those of the general labor union in alliance with socialist group, but Kisaeng is not found in the history of labor union in colonial period. Nevertheless, the self-affirmation and social voice from Kisaeng group, who were diversely utilized but incessantly disparaged and refused by the official society, presents a way of being as a women workers in a modern public sphere and the meaning of their labor to entertain male customers with erotic skills as well as the artistic achievements.