배제의 정체성을 넘어서 － 열린 문화적 정체성 구축을 위한 모색으로서 서사적 정체성 연구 (Beyond Exclusive Identity: A Study of Narrative Identity as a Basis for Construction of Open Cultural Identity)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 새한철학회
· 수록지 정보 : 철학논총 / 61권 / 3호 / 225 ~ 257페이지
· 저자명 : 김정현

초록

이 글은 정체성의 문제를 다룬다. 정체성은 제국주의가 문화를 통해 식민지를 지배하고자 했을 당시 문화적 사고의 핵심에 있었던 문제였다. 제국은 자국의 정체성 확립을 통해, 혹은 확립과 함께 타국의 타자성을 정립했고, 그럼으로써 식민지 지배의 정당성을 확보하고자 했던 것이다. 이러한 현상은 오늘날에도 바뀐 모습으로 확인된다.
정체성의 부정적 측면으로 인해 정체성 개념을 해체하려는 시도들이 있다. 이 시도에 담긴 긍정적 의도에도 불구하고, 이 개념의 해체는 또 다른 문제를 야기할 것이라는 생각에서 여전히 정체성 개념을 유지하려는 이들이 있다. 서사적 정체성을 말하는 일련의 학자들이 바로 그들이다.
제국의 지배 과정에서 정체성은 본질적인 것, 초역사적인 것, 변하지 않는 것, 완성된 것으로 이해된 채로 동원되었다. 따라서 정체성 개념을 해체하지 않고 견지하려할 경우, 정체성 개념에 내포된 이러한 경직성과 폐쇄성의 완화는 필수적이다. 개방적 정체성 개념이 요청되는 것이다. 이 글은 서사적 정체성이 이러한 요청에 부응할 수 있는 개념이라고 생각한다.
서사를 통해 형성되는 정체성, 곧 서사적 정체성은 그 개념의 특성 상 개방적이다. 그것은 항상 새로운 서사에 대해 열려있으며, 새로운 읽기를 통해 거듭 형성되는 정체성이다. 서사적 정체성은, 거기서 더 나아간다. 그것은 우리로 하여금 서사를 성찰적으로 적용할 것을 요구함으로써 항상 우리의 삶을 검토하게 한다.
서사적 정체성에 대한 분석을 통해 산출된 성과들은 문화적 정체성을 개방적으로 이해하는데 여러 시사점을 제공한다. 우리의 정체성을 규정하는 문화를 어떻게 해석학적으로 올바르게 수용할 것인가에 대해 서사적 정체성은 여러 가지 기여를 할 수 있다.

영어초록

This paper tries to construct a notion of open cultural identity. Identity, according to Edward Said, was “the core of cultural thought during the era of imperialism”. In other words, it was “the hallmark of imperialist cultures.” The ground which this notion can play such a role is that it essentially constructs itself with excluding others. Each society, regardless of whether it is colonizing one or colonized one, always builds and maintains its identity through ceaselessly creating and recreating ‘other’. This implies that the process of identification is not a static one, but a social, academic, and political one controlled by power politics.
What are the inner-conceptual grounds of identity for its being used for imperialist practice? What kind of understanding of identity has made it possible for imperialism to do such a practice? To both imperialist and nationalist, identity has been understood as a substantial essence, invariable and ahistorical thing. It has been recognized as a border line as well. As a substantial and history transcending thing, identity has been taken as unchangeable. As a border line, it has played a role of the wall separating us from them.
Cultural identity has been appeared as a main issue at the space of nonacademic and academic areas. For example, the debate on national identity in France and the discussion over the concept of East Asia Community in Korea, Japan and China reflect this situation. Cultural identity means "the identity of a group or culture, or of an individual as far as one is influenced by one's belonging to a group or culture." The definition of cultural identity by Stuart Hall focuses on the latter aspect, that is, the influence of culture on the formation of an individual identity. He uses this notion to tell that it is not possible to understand identity outside culture and representation.
The experience of imperialism teaches us that it is required to construct a notion of open identity to cut the connection between identity and violence. For this purpose, we analyze the concept of narrative identity. There are some philosophers like Charles Taylor, Alasdair MacIntyre, Martha Nussbaum and Paul Ricoeur who emphasize that concept. Among them, we analyze the concept of narrative identity presented by Ricoeur who, we believe, give us the richest insights and contents.
Ricoeur argues that narrative identity is “the kind of identity that human beings acquire through the mediation of the narrative function.” Of course, this is a formal and abstract definition. There are preliminaries which are required to understand his concept of narrative identity. Above all, it is necessary to keep in mind that narrative identity has been suggested as one constitutive of selfhood, not of a thing. So, it is important to distinguish two meanings of identity, that is, idem-identity which refers to the identity of a thing and ipse-identity which refers to identity of a self. The distinctive sense of ipse-identity is "permanence in time". According to Ricoeur's analysis, the concept of narrative identity can contain this sense of identity. The reason narrative identity can do that is that it is grounded on the dynamic identity model issued from the poetic composition of narrative text.
The core of narrative, or story lies in plotting(mise en intrigue). We can find dynamic identity in the plot, which creates the identity of a character we can call his/her narrative identity. Plotting makes the mediation between permanence and change. For plot “provides the model of discordant concordance on which it is possible to construct the narrative identity of the character.” Now we can define narrative identity more comprehensively through synthesizing the explanations of Ricoeur: Narrative identity is the identity of a human self embodying dialectics of permanence and change which is formed through the mediation of narrative function and resembles the identity of a character.
What does the concept of narrative identity imply for cultural identity? The notion contributes to construct an open cultural identity by letting us recognize that identity concerning human is not substantial, ahistorical and unchangeable. It is reconfigured again and again through applying narratives from the past and the outside reflexively. This means that cultural identity, which concerns with human identity, is not a origin, but a product.
There remains something to say of narrative which is the core element of narrative identity. To construct one narrative is to exclude the possibility of other stories. Because of this characteristic of making story, story can be used by the part that has power for its dominance over the powerless. But this defect of narrative does not give us the reason we should give up narrative. We should and can compensate the weakness of one narrative by constructing other narrative. If we throw away narrative, we would lose the most important resource for forming and explicating ourselves' identity.

참고자료

· 없음