스탬프의 식민정치학 - 식민지 조선의 명소기념스탬프의 장소성

Abstract

During the Japanese colonial era, the Empire of Japan exploited a number of visual images to absorb colonies with ‘distinct’ race, language and culture into the same cultural area. Among those, postcards were utilized as a mass media and commemorative stamps sealed on postcards revealed the epoch of them. Commemorative stamps, issued in the Chosen dynasty, for the promotion of attractions, railway stations and the government policies were recognized as a symbol of information homogenization, being circulated in colonial areas. Selection of Eight Views of Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, and national parks and imperialistic events such as exhibition and fair were largely attributed to the function of commemorative stamps. Accordingly, whenever a commemorative stamp which compressed a national speech with colonialism viewpoints was issued, the issue of the stamp was published repeatedly in many newspapers. It shows that the commemorative stamp is highly efficacious in the acknowledgement of sociocultural issues. In particular, 77 commemorative stamps for attractions were issued from 1931 to 1938. The Chamber of Commerce, various post offices and even the state post bureau in the Japanese Government General of Korea directly involved in the design of stamps. Consequently, the placeness of the Chosen dynasty, analyzed from the design of stamps is concluded to three aspects, natural scenery, industrial development and local specialty. The space of the Chosen dynasty shown by commemorative stamps for attractions reveals a temporality to organize Chosen as a region of Japan in the geographical narrative rather than to recognize it as an aggregation of national culture. It is also noteworthy that it forcefully controlled discussion over living-cultural aspects of the space of the Chosen dynasty as it was repeated and circulated with nomadic records. Lastly, commemorative stamps for attractions, even functioning a city characteristics to revive locals in the 21st century, were identified as a symbolistic union of minimum mobility to let natives in colonials aware themselves as the citizen of Japan.