Dong-kyu Kim

10.18399/acta.2012.15.2.005

Korean shamanship construction of self-identity tradition modernity Intangible Cultural Treasure

This article addresses the complex process of the construction of self-identity of shamans in contemporary Korea while focusing on shamans’ consumption of such notions as tradition and modernity. The paradoxical condition, in which a shaman is ideologically identified as a religious priest as well as a cultural transmitter but is also condemned as practicing superstition, results in confusion as Korean shamans try to construct their own self-identity. When a shaman tries to construct his/her identity, there exist models of identity culturally available to him/her at a particular historical moment, which I argue are characterized by the intermingling of tradition and modernity. By analyzing two shamans’ life stories, I will provide an account of how they appropriate the memory of traditional apprenticeship under their spirit-mother/father in order not only to differentiate themselves from tradition but also accommodate themselves to it, illustrating how modern concepts such as religion and neo-shamanism are synthesized into the reconfiguring of Korean shamanship.