한국사회의 동물위령제를 통해 본 동물의 죽음에 대한 사회적 인식의 변화 (Changes in the Cultural Acknowledgement of Animal Death in Korean Society as Seen through Memorial Services for Animals)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 서울대학교 비교문화연구소
· 수록지 정보 : 비교문화연구 / 17권 / 2호 / 87 ~ 124페이지
· 저자명 : 휄트캄프, 엘머

초록

Folklore is a cultural expression of the way people perceive their living environment, and springs forth from processes by which hard to grasp facts are transformed into acceptable and understandable cultural forms. Memorial services for animals in Korea have not received academic attention up to the present, but they comprise a living cultural phenomenon that is widely observed in animal testing laboratories, zoos, Buddhist temples, and animal-related companies for animals that were killed for human purposes. In this research, I examined the changes that have occurred in Koreans' views of animals and animal death in the last twenty years through analysis of the way memorial services for animals were introduced and discovered in Korea.
As a result, I found that memorial services for laboratory animals in Korea before 1945 were held mainly by Japanese researchers. During the late 1960s and early 1970s a number of individual researchers took up these services independently, but it became a more widespread custom in particular from the late 1990s. As reasons for the recent expansion of memorial services for animals, we cannot ignore the social advancement of animal protection ideologies from the late 1980s and the sudden popularity increase of pet animals from the late 1990s onward. Through these two developments the interest in animal life and death continues to grow in Korea, and the cultural positioning of animal death as expressed in people's views of animals is changing a little at a time. Memorial services for animals are starting to penetrate the lives of increasing numbers of Korean people and are becoming one way to culturally express these changing interests.
Although memorial services for animals in Korea were held by Japanese in the colonial period, this does not mean that present day services are an extension or continuation thereof. The reason is that in the process of coping with developments related to a changing living environment and changing human-animal relationships, people do not utilize only culture elements that were 'transmitted' through generations, but they adopt cultural elements that newly develop (or, are introduced from outside) within present day society. In other words, recent developments in human-animal relationships in Korea have made that memorial services for animals are quickly becoming an instrument for cultural expression to give meaning to changes in the living environment, which corresponds to our definition of everyday folk culture.

영어초록

Folklore is a cultural expression of the way people perceive their living environment, and springs forth from processes by which hard to grasp facts are transformed into acceptable and understandable cultural forms. Memorial services for animals in Korea have not received academic attention up to the present, but they comprise a living cultural phenomenon that is widely observed in animal testing laboratories, zoos, Buddhist temples, and animal-related companies for animals that were killed for human purposes. In this research, I examined the changes that have occurred in Koreans' views of animals and animal death in the last twenty years through analysis of the way memorial services for animals were introduced and discovered in Korea.
As a result, I found that memorial services for laboratory animals in Korea before 1945 were held mainly by Japanese researchers. During the late 1960s and early 1970s a number of individual researchers took up these services independently, but it became a more widespread custom in particular from the late 1990s. As reasons for the recent expansion of memorial services for animals, we cannot ignore the social advancement of animal protection ideologies from the late 1980s and the sudden popularity increase of pet animals from the late 1990s onward. Through these two developments the interest in animal life and death continues to grow in Korea, and the cultural positioning of animal death as expressed in people's views of animals is changing a little at a time. Memorial services for animals are starting to penetrate the lives of increasing numbers of Korean people and are becoming one way to culturally express these changing interests.
Although memorial services for animals in Korea were held by Japanese in the colonial period, this does not mean that present day services are an extension or continuation thereof. The reason is that in the process of coping with developments related to a changing living environment and changing human-animal relationships, people do not utilize only culture elements that were 'transmitted' through generations, but they adopt cultural elements that newly develop (or, are introduced from outside) within present day society. In other words, recent developments in human-animal relationships in Korea have made that memorial services for animals are quickly becoming an instrument for cultural expression to give meaning to changes in the living environment, which corresponds to our definition of everyday folk culture.

참고자료

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