일본에서의 한국 민중사연구 비판 －趙景達을 중심으로－

초록

The research on Korean history in Japan since the war has reached the stage where the main currents are made up of third generation scholars. Two main currents of Japan’s research on modern Korean history are “colonial modernity theory” and “minjung history.”The epistemological structure of Cho Kyŏngdal’s minjung history can be found in his three monographs: Idanŭi Minjung Pallan (The Heretical MinjungUprising, 1998) on the Kap’o Peasant’ Uprising; Chosŏn Minjungundongŭi Chŏn’gae (The Development of Korea’s Minjung Movement, 2002); and Sikminjigi Chosŏnŭi Chisikingwa Minjung (Intellectuals and Minjung in Colonial Korea, 2008). It has three characteristics. First, Cho sees minjung as autonomous beings possessing their own particular culture. Second, from this perspective, Cho attempts to verify the subjectivity of minjung by using the concept of tongsok todŏk (common ethics). And third, Cho makes the claim that he can confirm the “everyday world” of minjung, who have been established as agents of change, by analyzing their non-everyday struggles. However, his research does not reach beyond the level of minjung “movement” history. Based on his study on minjung movement history, Cho is strongly critical of the theory of colonial modernity. According to Cho, the theory of colonial modernity recognizes the subsumption of colonial rule by using inappropriate concepts such as colonial publicness and hegemony. In other words, Cho argues that the theory of colonial modernity prevents the recognition of, first, exploitation, discrimination, and oppression that are diversely carried out in the name of modernity and, second, the totality of violence that guarantees them. Cho’s critique seems to originate from the biases in his own research on minjung history. Cho’s mijung history is based on the strategies of dualism and anti-hegemony. The strategy of dualism is to assume minjung as agents of change in resistances against all forms of domination and to subsume all related things under this dualistic structure. Furthermore, in order to recognize the subjectivity of minjung as agents of change, Cho refuses to recognize any forms of hegemony. His problematization is entirely reduced to minjung. This is well evidenced in his serious misunderstanding of colonial publicness. Is not the autonomy of minjung that is not based on the modern individual autonomy merely an empty slogan? Cho’s research on minjung history has the task of overcoming such logical dilemma.

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