Places of Memory in the Collective Memory of Locals in Janghang, Korea

Abstract

Place memory is a new way of seeing as a new concept of cultural landscape research. Various research works and discussions have recently spread in landscape studies. In particular, the, which is visible and material, is a medium in which collective memory is embedded in place memory. The purpose of this study is to extract places of memory from the collective memory of residents of Janghang, Korea, and to visualize it through semantic relations. For this purpose, semi-standardized interviews (34 persons) were conducted with residents, and frequency analysis and semantic network analysis were used. As a result, the interviewees recalled only 127 places in Janghang that existed between 1920 and 2010. Locals remember the city based on places of memory. This means that the city could be illustrated according to specific places that are frequently mentioned. For instance, the top 25 places (top 20%) explain 65.6% of all the places in the city, and the top 39 places (top 30.8%) could describe 78.7% of the places. Some places are referred to more frequently when they are in the city’s symbolic landscape, and the city’s identity is projected on them. Some places were mentioned only infrequently but were nevertheless very important places by which to understand Janghang. These places of memory have not appeared in the documentary records before, which shows the value of the collective memory of the locals and the effectiveness of the interviewing method. In the clustering of the semantic network, six groups of places appeared. The local residents remembered the modern industrial city and recalled it in connection with the sites of daily life. This shows the possibility of looking not only at public memory and famous heritage as a macro history but also at daily life and meaningful places as a micro history about locals. This study has significance as an initial research that identified and visualized places of memory from the perspective of local residents. Such an approach could be useful in the study of everyday life and the conservation of modern heritage.