• Title/Summary/Keyword: colonial discourse

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Approaches in Southeast Asian Studies: Developing Post-colonial Theories in Area Studies

  • Pamungkas, Cahyo
    • SUVANNABHUMI
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    • v.7 no.1
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    • pp.59-76
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    • 2015
  • This paper proposes an approach in Southeast Asian studies using a post-colonial framework in the study of post-colonial Southeast Asia. This framework is based on the sociology of knowledge that analyzes the dialectical relationship between science, ideology, and discourse. Post-colonial studies is critical of the concept of universality in science and posits that a scientific statement of a society cannot stand alone, but is made by authors themselves who produce, use, and claim the so-called scientific statement. Several concepts in post-colonial theories can be used to develop area studies, i.e. colonial discourse, subaltern, mimicry, and hybridity. Therefore, this study also explores these concepts to develop a more comprehensive understanding of Southeast Asian culture. The development of post-colonial theories can be used to respond to the hegemony of social theories from Europe and the United States. The main contribution of area studies in the field of the social sciences and humanities is in revealing the hidden interests behind the universal social sciences.

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The Crisis of British Imperialism in Southeast Asia: The (Mis)Representation of the Indigenous in Clifford and Conrad

  • Kil, Hye Ryoung
    • Journal of English Language & Literature
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    • v.58 no.6
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    • pp.1041-1061
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    • 2012
  • In the late nineteenth century, British colonial activities became aggressive and annexationist in the tropics, including the Southeast Asian Archipelago, which reflected the historical circumstances of both increasing resistance from the indigenous and severe competition among European powers. Interestingly, the change in English colonial policy toward an annexationist or imperialist vision adopted the motto of a civilizing mission, which was founded on the anthropological assumption that the white English were civilized, while the non-white indigenous were savage. The assumption developed into colonial discourse through systematic gathering of anthropological knowledge about the peripheries of the Empire. The knowledge system was flawed, which stressed the differences of the peripheral populations from the English and served as an inverted discourse on the Imperial Self rather than the description of the Other. Furthermore, the natives were heterogeneous, which rendered indistinct the racial and cultural differences between the English and the natives. Still, the aboriginals called Malays, who were comprised of many ethnic subgroups, needed to be deemed savage or inferior by the English in order to justify the English civilizing work or imperial ambition. Put differently, the representation of the English as civilized necessitated the (mis)representation of the natives as savage. In this context, Clifford's works contribute to systematic misrepresentation of the Malays, on which colonial discourse is founded, though not without self-contradiction. On the other hand, Conrad's novels that are set in the Malay Archipelago resort to a strategic misrepresentation that reveals the relativity of the discourse. Exploring the dilemma of denationalization to various degrees, Conrad's Malay texts problematize the (mis)representation of the indigenous as inferior, which is the basis of English claim to superiority.

Deconstructing the Genealogy of Orientalism in Term of a Supplement (『오리엔탈리즘』 계보학의 해체론적 재해석 "Truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions") (진리란 그것이 환상임을 망각하고 있는 착각이다))

  • Choi, Su
    • English & American cultural studies
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    • v.17 no.2
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    • pp.29-61
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    • 2017
  • Said's Orientalism criticized the European representations on the Middle-East by theorizing orientalism as a discourse. In this text, he explored and criticized the colonial forms of knowledge and language that distorted the image of the colonized. The justification of the discourse of orientalism is derived from the binary system that is originated from Plato which Derrida rejects on the ground that it always privileges one term over the other, that is, colonizer over colonized. Derrida names for this traditional heritage of Western binary system logocentrism which regards logos(the Greek term for speech or reason) as the central principle of language and philosophy, whereas mythos derives its meaning from the logos on the basis of binary oppositions. Thus according to logocentrism, the colonized is merely the defined who can have its meaning from the definers, colonizers. In this paper, utilizing Derrida's a (non)concept called supplement which means both to add on as a surplus and to make up something missing as a mere extra, I propose another alternative interpretation towards the critique of colonial representation by raising internal contradictions in the Platonic dichotomy between logos and mythos embedded in western colonialism discourse, orientalism. I attempt to show that logos(colonizer) and mythos(colonized) is inseparable in itself due to the fact that they exist as supplementary. For this purpose, I demonstrate how colonial binary system constituted and was constituted in terms of language. Through this paper I reinterpret the colonial rationality of privileging 'logos' over 'mythos' by substituting the colonial binary system with the supplement.

'Media Influence' Discourses Articulated for Crowd Control in Colonial Korea (식민지 '미디어 효과론'의 구성 대중 통제 기술로서 미디어 '영향 담론')

  • Yoo, Sunyoung
    • Korean journal of communication and information
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    • v.77
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    • pp.137-163
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    • 2016
  • In the early 1900, photography, magic lantern and cinema were simultaneously introduced and experienced until the mid-1910s as mysterious and magical symbol of modern science and technology. The technology of vision, cinema in particular demonstrated its commercially expandable potentials through serial films in the mid-1910s, silent cinema in the 1920s and talkies in 1930s. I argue that a metaphor 'like a movie' which was would be spoken out by peoples as a cliche ever since the late 1910s whenever they encountered something uncanny, mysterious, and looking wholly new phenomena informs how cinematic technology worked in colonial society at the turning point to the early 20th century. Mass in colonial society accepted cinema and other visual technologies not only as an advanced science of the times but as texts of modernity that is the reason why cinema had so quickly taken cultural hegemony over the colony. Until the mid-1920s, discourse on cinema focused not on cinema itself, rather more on the theatre matters such as hygiene, facilities for public use, disturbance, quarrels and fights, theft, and etc. Since the mid-1920s and especially in wartime 1930s, discourses about negative influences and effects of cinema on behavior, mind and spirit of masses, bodily health, morality and crime were articulated and delivered by Japanese authorities and agencies like as police, newspapers and magazines, and collaborate Korean intellectuals. Theories and research reports stemming from disciplines of psychology, sociology, and mass-psychology that emphasized vulnerability and susceptibility of the crowd and mass consumers who would be exposed to visual images, spectacles and strong toxic stimulus in everyday lives. Those negative discourse on influences and effects of cinema was intimately associated with fear of the crowd and mass as well as new technology which does not allow clear understanding about how it works in future. The fact that cinema as a technology of vision could be used as an apparatus of ideology and propaganda stirred up doubts and pessimistic perspectives on cinema influence. Discourse on visual technology cinema constructed under colonial governance is doomed to be technology of mass control for empire's own sake.

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Chinese Influence and Southeast Asian Response: An Interactive Approach (중국의 영향과 동남아의 대응: 상호적 접근시각)

  • Park, Sa-Myung
    • The Southeast Asian review
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    • v.21 no.2
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    • pp.217-261
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    • 2011
  • This study is an attempt to construct a basic framework of analysis about China's political and economic influence on Southeast Asia through traditional Sinocentrism, anti-colonial nationalism, Cold War socialism and post-Cold War capitalism. As to the historical status of Southeast Asia vis-a-vis external forces such as India, China and the West, the colonial discourse tends to put excessive emphasis upon its dependence, and the posy-colonial discourse upon its autonomy. However, this study elucidates the political and economic interactions between China and Southeast Asia in a dynamic perspective, focusing on their reciprocal interactions beyond the essentially static dichotomy of autonomy and dependence. Chinese influence on Southeast asia can be divided into active and reactive one, with the former referring to direct and intended consequences and the latter to indirect and unintended consequences. In the historical process of active and reactive influence, both China and Southeast Asia were fundamentally proactive actors. Thus, the autonomy or dependence of Southeast Asia is just a question of relative one, with its actual extent and degree varying with specific spatial and temporal conditions.

Housing Consciousness Revealed from the Discourse of Ideal Housing since the Enlightement Era (개화기 이후 이상주거 담론에 나타난 주의식)

  • Yang, Se-Hwa;Jun, Nam-Il;Hong, Hyung-Ock;Sohn, Sei-Kwan
    • Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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    • v.44 no.5 s.219
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    • pp.35-48
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    • 2006
  • The purpose of the study is to examine how housing consciousness has been changed through various discourse on ideal housing from opening ports to the present. Reviews of literature including newspapers, magazines, novels, advertising materials, research papers, books, and so on are mainly utilized in accomplishing the purpose. This study covers four periods such as the enlightenment era, the Japanese colonial nile, before and after the Korean war, and after the economic development to present. During the enlightenment period in which foreign culture and housing were introduced, with reconsideration on traditional housing basic physiological housing value including health and hygiene was appeared. The desires of Munhwa housing with western styles and housing improvement were emphasized due to the new cultural improvement during the Japanese colonial rule. Before and after the Korean war which was chaotic times with rehabilitation, the provision of a large amount of public housing with minimum conditions for the basic human needs was the most important. After 1960s, due to the housing policy focusing on the mass-provision of apartments and the discourse on apartment as an ideal housing for the ordinary households in Korea, apartment dwellings become structure type norms in Korea.

Ambivalent Reading on the Story of the Colonialism in The Piano

  • Park, Seung Hyun;Nam, Jae Il
    • International Journal of Contents
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    • v.9 no.4
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    • pp.86-91
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    • 2013
  • The Piano, directed by Jane Campion in 1993, became a sensational movie with a special theme focusing on gender and sexual identity, when it won Palme d'Or in the Cannes Film Festival at the same year. Most of the critics discuss the representation of Victorian sexual repression in the colonial setting. But the critical acclaim tends to view the existence of the Maori people and the colonial setting as the backdrop of the narrative, although this colonial background is constructed as a medium to accelerate the release of the repressed passion. Regarding the race issue as a compelling discourse that gets left out of "feminist" accounts, this paper analyzes The Piano, focusing on both how the story of colonialism is constituted in the film and how the film represents ambivalent images of the Maori people, the native of New Zealand.

A Study on the Discourse for the Improvement of Living Conditions and Housing through Modern Women's Magazines (일제강점기 여성지에 나타난 생활개선 담론의 경향 고찰 - 주생활 및 부엌개량의 내용을 중심으로 -)

  • Kim, Young-Bum
    • Journal of the Korean housing association
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    • v.22 no.4
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    • pp.51-61
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    • 2011
  • This study aimed to grasp trends of the discourse for improving living conditions carried out since 1920's, when the sense for mending the irrationality of conventional living emerged in various magazines. Among the movement, women intellectuals played an important roles to discuss reforming daily life and unhealthy, inconvenient houseworks. This study found the ideological background and direction of this discourse, and estimated its important role for housing improvement, analyzing the contents of articles published in representative womens' magazines of the modern times. In the discourse, they thought that it was most important to make houseworks brief and efficient, and concentrated on building rational environment for houseworks. As reforming kitchen system, heating system (Ondol) should be separated from cooking system to improve hygienic and economical condition of houseworks. Reformed kitchen would be equipped with new installations for effectiveness, lightened by sunlight through windows, and finished floor with cement and drainage for sanitation. Also, they suggested new ways of living, planning modern houses with reformed kitchen system, thinking about moving path and distance of housewives. This discourse would be a foundation to the change of kitchen system up to now.

Mobilization of Gookmin, Formation of 'Gookmin': A Historical Study of the Discourse of 'Gookmin' in Korea (국리의 동원, '국민'의 형성: 한국사회 '국민' 담론의 계보학)

  • Jeon, Gyu-Chan
    • Korean journal of communication and information
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    • v.31
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    • pp.261-293
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    • 2005
  • This article aims at investigating the origin of 'gookmin', which is currently working as the dominant discourse and leading identity in the South Korean society. Like 'nation', 'people' or/and 'citizen', the term of 'gookmin' is a very much particular and historical outcome of the colonial modernity. Nevertheless, however, there have been not so much serious socio-linguistic, cultural-political studies about its root. It is theoretically as well as practically quite important to trace back the birth of 'gookmin', which is working as an ideological, epistemological frame in/between subject and reality. In this regard, this article will consider the late Japanese colonial period as a key period of the birth of 'gookmin'. It will then critically scrutinize how the total mobilization system by adopted the colonial government has formed the discourse and subjectivity of 'gookmin' based on various physical apparatuses. By revealing that a totalistic nation/state of Japanese colonialism is behind 'gookmin', which wanted to mobilize every individuals into a so-called article of empire, this article tries to show the fascist and propaganda nature of 'gookmin' continuing even after the liberation. As a historical-materialist work of deconstruction the dominant discourse of 'gookmin', this study will basically take a cultural studies approach.

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The Psychiatrist and the Revolutionary: Frantz Fanon's Critique of Colonial Discourse

  • Rasmussen, Kim Su;Sorensen, Eli Park
    • Cross-Cultural Studies
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    • v.24
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    • pp.5-18
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    • 2011
  • This article offers a reflection on Frantz Fanon's diagnosis and analysis of French colonialism in Algeria. We will attempt to demonstrate that there is a concrete and clear connection between Fanon as the psychiatrist diagnosing the devastating effects of the French colonial system, and his subsequent political involvement in the Algerian revolution. This is not to say that each part does not contain valuable insights in their own rights, but rather to stress that without being read together, as a whole, one would miss a significant element in the understanding of the importance Fanon's thought subsequently came to play in the emancipation struggles of the colonized worldwide. Furthermore, we argue that it is crucial to understand the intimate connection between Fanon's psychiatric work, his diagnosis of colonial mental disorders, as well as diagnosis of the colonial system as such, and then his political engagement, in order to understand the particular context in which he favourably discusses the use of violence in the name of fighting against the oppressive system of colonialism. Above all, we argue that Fanon's critique of colonialism continues to spark controversy because it still represents the most powerful and incisive analysis of, as well as answer to, the troubled relationship between the blessed and the wretched of the earth.