Circulating Ethnicity : Images of Power in Cordillera Postage Stamps

• 영문명: Circulating Ethnicity : Images of Power in Cordillera Postage Stamps
• 발행기관: 한국아메리카학회
• 저자명: Anna Christie Torres
• 간행물 정보: 『미국학논집』제38집 1호, 233~248쪽, 전체 16쪽
• 주제분류: 인문학 > 기타인문학
• 파일형태: PDF
• 발행일자: 2006.05.01

영문 초록

  Discourse on history and culture continues to unfold on the postage stamp, a familiar visual form that is more than a square inch of sticky paper. Although today it faces stiff competition from the electronic mail, automatic or metered stamps and courier services, it remains a miniature genre in the context of visual culture.
  My project explores the ways in which stamps could be thought to possess performative qualities, literally and metaphorically. I shall focus on stamps depicting historical events, scenic spots and indigenous peoples of and on the Cordillera, north Luzon, Philippines in the light of American colonialism and its vestiges today. The stamp and those which belong to what Nicholas Mirzoeff calls the territory of visual culture is defined not so much by its medium but by the interaction between the viewer and viewed. This visual event, according to Mirzoeff involves the interaction of the visual sign, the enabling and sustaining mechanism of the sign and the viewer. In other words, it constructs an image of something and reveals the workings of power within that image. Through Barthean semiotics and Foucauldian discourse, I show how the study of visual texts provides an ongoing interrogation of cultural products and how these circulate and negotiate identities and nation-ness within an increasingly global capitalist economy.

목차

The Stamp as Visual Culture
The Stamp as Arena of Politics
The Stamp and Ways of Seeing the Igorot
Demystifying Images of the Igorot
Works Cited
Abstract

키워드

image postage stamp the Philippines ethnicity Culture