인식의 경계로서 로컬리티와 탈식민화

Locality as a Border of Recognition and Decolonization

This paper is intended to base a position of 'local studies' on a place beside the positions of de-colonial attempts in (neo-)colonial societies. It is, I think, a project that is not only to intervene in the terrain of the contest and conflict among social forces over 'a space of (social) consciousness' for a self-referential representation and imagining an alternative mental-material landscape within localities, but also to construct an alternative epistemology for trans-local solidarity against locality from above in a global context. A modern local which is localized by the bourgeoisie is not a static space that is essentially defined by the localizer but a dynamic locus at the present that could alternatively be imagined and reconstructed by the localized. The western (spatial) epistemology traditionally supposes a local place and people as 'deserted' or 'vacant' just waiting for the civilized from the early globalizing era. The White feels kind of 'destiny' or 'burden' of theirs, and legitimizes to “civilize” the land and people on a discursive basis. This is a typical process of localization under the western modernity in and out of the imperial territory. But the subaltern goes through and understands it as the process of colonization of their mental-material landscape that constructs naturalized locality and the oppression and exploitation system. An alternative epistemology for localization from below sews up the wounds of naturalized locality forced upon by localization from above, makes an inclusive ground for generative locality. Local, not as transcendental concept but as a process of contest and conflict among the forces havbing different consciousnesses for localizations, opens possibilities of probing a path to create generative locality beyond the border of naturalized locality. Localization from below against naturalized locality imposed by the West and the indigenous elite can be generated from self-conscious reflection and practical solidarity with reference to their own land, peoples, and local realities. It will reasonably connect the dots the way to generative locality as a critical theory which, I think, should be projected by the humanities of locality.