The Bangudae Petroglyph: Whaling and Remodernisation in a South Korean Industrial City

Abstract

The commemoration of whaling is a recent form of consumer culture in the Korean city of Ulsan, where the utilisation of the Bangudae Petroglyph as the emblem of the city is part of a wider process of re-modernisation in Korea. Starting with the concept of re-modernisation, developed by Ulrich Beck, I consider the extension of the concept by Bruno Latour, who has endowed it with a materialist emphasis. From the Latourean perspective, the petroglyph can be viewed as a non-human actor (‘quasi-object’ or ‘actant’) that allies with other actors (such as humans and whales) to create far-flung material networks. I present evidence from the re-enactment of a Neolithic Era whale hunt at a tourist festival to argue that the Bangudae Petroglyph is not merely a representation of whaling, but a portrayal of the relation between past and present which is crucial for sustaining the social solidarities of industrial capitalism in South Korea. From this study, I suggest that purposive nostalgia, the human desires and moralities that motivate human actors to seek the revival of modernisation, exercises a more powerful influence over the work of mediation in comparison to the weaker influence of non-human actants. © 2020, © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.