ScholarWorks@숙명여자대학교

초록

The purpose of this article is to examine the development of the concept of Minjung(민중/people), which has emerged since modern Korea and dominated the times, and to update the concept of minjung in the present, which is called the Anthropocene. To this end, this article examines the development of the concept of Minjung(민중) in Korean history in the 20th century and the contents of the innovation of Minjung(민중) concept and Minjung history(민중사) raised in the new political landscape since the 1990s. Next, we looked at the Minjung(민중) as newly interpreted in the ‘life movement’ that started with the ‘Wonju Group’ in the 1970s and 1980s. The people with these contents are named ‘ecological Minjung(민중)’ in this article. ‘Ecological Minjung(민중)’ was conceptualized when the cooperative movement, which started in the mid-to-late 1960s, discovered the people’s right to survival as a major agenda, transformed into a ‘life movement’, and combined with the worldview of ecology and Donghak since the 1980s. Because ‘ecological Minjung(민중)’ understands the people as an elusive concept, it does not allow us to imagine the people as a group with a specific identity. This concept leads us away from a substantive understanding. In addition, ‘ecological Minjung(민중)’, as a group of people, think not only of the people but also of broader things, such as animals, plants, minerals, and the atmosphere, and value the interrelationships between them, relativizing dichotomous thinking. By understanding the ‘ecological Minjung(민중)’ historically, we will be able to more flexibly understand the public discourse situation of the time and further respond to the current situation of the times.

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