The Review of Korean Studies
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- P-ISSN1229-0076
- E-ISSN2773-9351
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ISSN : 1229-0076
Acquired Tastes: Urban Impacts on Jeju Shamanic Ritual
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Abstract
What are the implications of a Starbucks bag tied on a tree as an offering to village gods or a Buddhist chant intoned in place of a shamanic invocation? This article re-considers the cultural meanings of practical material changes in Jeju shamanism in relation to its rapid urbanization since the early 2000s. Though often romanticized as an idyllic rural paradise or a bastion of shamanic practice, Jeju City has grown into a large complex and cosmopolitan city with constant access to international markets. Urban change had a profound impact on Jeju shamanism in every aspect. Once purely region- and community-specific, shamanic rituals, despite their decline in the depopulating countryside, have seen in some aspects an accidental vitality that came with urban interactions. Mainland Korean and foreign goods grace altars and the changed pace of life prompts practitioners to adopt new forms to keep old meanings. This article observes that as rural communities proactively maintain shamanic rites, they hardly are passive recipients of new things and ideas from the city that looms large over them. Although numbers of rural shrine worshippers are indeed declining, where rituals remain pertinent to local communities, Jeju shamanism’s interactions with urbanization demonstrate significant, and sometimes accidental, dynamism.
- keywords
- Jeju Island, shamanism, urbanization, globalization
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