(철)길 위의 사람들과 떠도는 영혼 - 김숨의 『떠도는 땅』에 나타나는 모빌리티와 이주의 문제를 중심으로 －

Abstract

This writing is what examined the mobility and migration issues that appeared in 『Floating Land』 of having addressed the deportation migration of Koreans(Goryoins[Soviet Koreans]) in 1937. 『Floating Land』, which is depicting the 40-day train journey from the maritime province to central Asia, is arranging the history of various mobilities and migrations in interspace dubbed train and railway. These narrations are intertwined with the complex and multi-level meaning networks and power contexts such as race & nation, class & birth. The trans-Siberian train, which is revived in the novel, is containing the history of the deportation migration of Koreans in 1937, but is including the history of imperialism and colonialism in Russia that had existed from before. The trans-Siberian train, which transports migrants from Europe to East Asia and then again from East Asia to central Asia, produces the history of countless migrations with crossing the border countries and regions. In this way, various narratives that the characters in the same train compartment spread are putting together the questions about nation & state, and race & class by having a land as a medium. The question about hometown and identity of being continued in the novel faces the inherent human problem of migrating from life to death beyond race & language, class & nation. Like a train that goes around the departure point and the destination, even a human being is part of nature that circulates death in life, and is ultimately ‘a floating existence.’ 『Floating Land』 seems to call into the racial problem through reproducing the history of the forced immigration of Koreans in 1937. However, evoking the history of various migration narratives and absent hospitality leads to coming to meet a problem of now-here in which migration and mobility are frequent. This writing speculates beyond even with (re)appropriating a nation as ‘the imagined community‘ through the narration of mobility and migration shown in 『Floating Land』, thereby aiming to reflect on our image of living in the era of migration & hybridity, trans-nation.