Discursive Construction of National Landscape through the Gaze of Camera in Precolonial Korea (1876-1910)

• In Event: Cultural Circulation and the “Micro-Import”

Abstract

At the turn of the twentieth century, Korea's landscape was rigorously reconfigured through the incorporation of photographic renderings as well as modern cartographic knowledge. The level of visualization of everyday life and landscape of people and land in this period was unprecedented. Interestingly, however, Korea's newly evolved/evolving geo-body was shaped around non-evidential concepts such as sovereignty, boundaries and national culture as much as they were bolstered by evidential data produced by modern cartographic technology or photography.
During this period of 1876 to 1910, no official colonial power was using "taxonomizing and coercive techniques" within Korea, but many imperial agents including Christian missionaries competed to appropriate physical space in and around Korea to legitimize their power and influence. Koreans' desire in re-demarcating their physical landscape thus coincided with ever-increasing threats of imperialist and foreign influence. Due to the circumstances, the process of nationalizing the landscape was often accomplished through their confrontations and resistance against modern technology and foreign agents, as well as incorporation thereof. This paper examines how the rhetoric of acceptance and resistance, as well as visibility and invisibility were formed around photographic renderings and camera technology and how they were constitutive of the discursive construction of Korea's national landscape and its inauguration of 'modern territory' as such in precolonial Korea.

Author

• Heejeong Sohn, Stony Brook University