일제 강점기 섬과 섬사람들에 대한 인식 －1920년대 호남지방의 도서들을 중심으로－

Abstract

In the Choseon Dynasty, an island was regarded a peripheral place,the farthest point from the reach of King’s edification. An island was seen as a place of exile or inhabited by fugitives. This perspective of island as a place of exile remained strong until the 1910s. However,as capitalization spread, islands became the rich repositories of marine products with tourism potential. The development of huge fishery and aquaculture industry naturally changed the viewpoint on islands. This changed external standpoint on islanders and even the identity of islanders themselves. In particular, the Korean nationalistic sentiment of the 1920s, which expanded rapidly, aimed to establish Korea as a country of islands and sea, and establish modern national spatial identity using islands to mark the borders. This for sure was an attempt to move away from the perception of islands as a peripheral place for deportees or fugitives rampant in the Choseon Dynasty. Koreans couldn’t openly make claims over territorial waters under colonial rule, so they made great effort to define Korea’s sea and islands as national space. This was also a process where islanders were establishing their own identity as the main agents of shaping and expanding the national space through action. Especially, the islands of Honam area (or Jeolla Province) with high economic value and many residents living there with close relations to land attracted more attention during the modernization process of the 1920s. A series of large-scale farm tenancy disputes occurred on many islands in the southwestern part of Honam in the 1920s; the media described that it embodied typical characteristics of Korean ‘compatriots’. The islands,which served as mere marginal places, were later transforming the nation as a whole as an embodiment of Korean nation.