<인간가족 The Family of Man> (1955)의 제 문제 : 보편주의에서 서구 중심주의로

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to reveal the limited viewpoint, deceptiveness, and western ethnocentrism inherent in the themes of "universal elements and emotions in the everydayness of life" and "the essential oneness of mankind throughout the world" which <The Family of Man>, the historical event, declared in solemnity. Above all, the exhibition removes the date of year photographed and the title from the photographs shown, and thereby removes the historical circumstances specific to certain races and certain classes from them to emphasize universal humanity or universality of humankind. 49 timeless and universal thematic captions have displaced the individual concreteness and uniqueness of historical time and situation. Those leading captions, which devide and determine the meanings of 37 sections, accomplish the universality of humankind. A closer examination on them, however, gives that the distribution and selection of these leading captions are characterized by western ethnocentrism. Furthermore, most Third World countries but for the West and Japan are deprived of the subjectivity of representation and relegated to the objects of western ethnocentric representation system. <The Family of Man> aiming for the human universalism never overcomes the western ethnocentrism.