This is about the geographical interpretation of the religious landscapes in Jeonju(全州) city. Finding these religious landscapes as geographical things with meanings, I can not help proposing some different theoretical basis. For example, the miss...
This is about the geographical interpretation of the religious landscapes in Jeonju(全州) city. Finding these religious landscapes as geographical things with meanings, I can not help proposing some different theoretical basis. For example, the missionary strategies, the religious hegemony and the social-political contexts need to be considered for interpreting the religious landscape. Based on these kind of perspectives, this study aimed at interpreting the Jeondong CathedraI(殿洞聖堂) from the Pre-colonial Period to the Colonial(japanese Imperialism).
This situation proposes that we have to understand the religious landscape as a thing with the social(i.e. political, social, cultural, religious, etc.) meanings. In other words, it has
been served as a religious and cultural, even political text to be experienced and read for many researchers and Christians. With regard to these kind of theoretical proposes, I tried to adopt the interpretive approach to the Catholic landscape as a geographical text. Especially, I would like to emphasize that meanings of such landscapes, identified by written or oral texts must be related to the social contexts{the external factors) the missionary and
strategies(the internal).
Under the Japanese Imperialism, Christians who settled at the mountain valley eventually moved to different cities and towns. Many Christians could not but face the economic poverty and they were forced to move to the lowlands as farmers and manufacturers. Thes kind of changes of the sociaI, economic changes resulted in
missionary strategies, for example, the establishment of the Cathedral like Jeondong Church in Jeonju.
I tried to interpret some religious landscapes and places, considering the changes of the social contexts(the external) and the missionary strategies(the internal). So I have been interested
the competition appropriation between the Jeonju castle(eup-seong, 邑城) and the the Catholic landscapes. The Japanese colonialism destroyed the Confucian landscapes which had symbolized
the identity of the Choson(朝鮮) dynasty,constructing modern (western) landscapes instead. In other words, the spatial structures of the Choson dynasty had to be transformed into the colonial landscapes. Here we must doubt the scheme of the domination power(the Japanese Imperialism) breaking up the Choson dynasty. So, I paid attention to the relations of the jeonju castle and the Catholic landscapes.
I could identify that the Catholic could not enter the city wall called Jeonju0seong. Aa the political, social, economic, and religious Cathedral(1914) came to be located in front of the south gate of Jeonju eup-seong. So it is important for us not to regard the changes of the locations of the religious landscapes as purely religious and spatial in meaning but the changes of the missionary(political and cultural) strategies.
Through the changes of the locations of the religious landscapes, the Catholic church intended to show their religious status as a
sort of Kerygma. Especially the height and direction of such landscapes need to be read as a competition with the Confucian
landscapes. Because the Jeondong Cathedral was faced to Jeonju eup-seong, each landscape could have its entire view. So this kind of direction-relation could be read as a religious Kerygma and political, social status. After all, these kind of features of the landscapes must each be related to the religions' missionary strategies reflecting the social contexts. I would like to classify these situations into the social construction of the religious landscapes.
Key words: religious landscape, Jeondong Cathedral, Catholic landscape, missionary strategy.