북한교과서의 민족국가 담론과 젠더

Nation-state and gender relations in North Korean Textbooks

이 연구는 북한교과서에서 나타난 민족국가 담론을 여성주의 시각에서 분석하였 다. 분석대상이 된 교과서는 1972년과 1995년에 출판된 인민학교 4학년 공산주의 도덕교과서와 1987년과 1997년에 출판된 인민학교 4학년 국어교과서이다. 분석결 과 북한교과서에서 민족국가를 나타내는 가장 빈번한 수사는 가족이었다. 그런데 북한의 민족국가가족은 절대 권위를 갖는 아버지 즉 김일성의 보살핌을 받으며 그 은덕에 보답해야 하는 아들딸들로 묘사되었다. 그리고 한민

In this paper, I tried to analyze nation-state discourses and gender relations represented by N. Korean official knowledge. To do so, I selected 4th grade elementary school textbooks. They are Socialist Moral published in 1972 and, 1995, and Korean in 1987 and 1997. N. Korean Textbooks were not simply gender-neutral in the national metaphor, the construction of a qualified/disqualified national subject and the narrative for the good national subject and national history. Rather they were characterized as contradictions and conflicts. For instance, the family metaphor was quite often used to mention the nation-state to signify a quite warm and equal organic unity. Yet it was quite patriarchical since Il-sung Kim exercised an absolute power over the rest of the nation family. The interesting point is that caring was depicted as an excellent quality for the top leader, unlike most Western narratives that see femininity as a threatening force to masculinity. Regarding a qualified national subject, the official knowledge strongly encouraged boys and girls to be aggressive socialist fighters. However many women represented as the qualified national subject was a good mother who devoted herself for her son. Moreover, gender stereotyped representation tends to be stronger in the textbooks published after 1980s than one in 1970s.