Translating ‘Photography’: The Migration of the Concept of Sajin from Portraiture to Photography

Abstract

This article maps out the genealogy of the Korean term sajin, which began to be used as a translation for photography in late-nineteenth-century Korea. A genealogical study of the term sajin and its extension to the naming of photography provides a foundation to comprehend the processes in which the reception of photography as a new cultural product was framed by Korean indigenous practices of representation and their related cultural discourses. One of the main objectives of this essay is to highlight the fact that the concepts of photography and photographic technology were not simply imported into Korea from the West, but were actively recoded in ways that responded to established cultural and political discourses of Korea, and intercultural dialogues between East Asian countries. Emphasising the discursive specificity of photography in Korea, I move beyond the familiar discourse of centre and periphery that has shaped the narrative of western globalisation. This article will be of interest to contemporary historians and theorists of photography who are seeking alternatives to Euro-American notions of photography and its history.