Displaying ‘nation’ in science museums: representing national pride in korean national science museums

Abstract

Displaying national pride in Korean national science museums has been highly political because technologies were underdeveloped and indigenous science has little relevance to modern science. Therefore, the science museums has politically and deliberately determined what to show and what to hide for evoking national pride from Korean science and technology. I examine the politics of displaying national pride in three national science museums in Korea, the Seoul National Science Museum in the 1970s, the National Science Museum in the 1990s, and the Gwacheon National Science Museum in the 2000s. I investigate what problems they encountered when they represented national pride and what strategy they applied to encourage national pride. The Seoul National Science Museum represented national pride by showing economic and industrial competitiveness of Korea with the display on energy industries and replicas of factories. Industries and industrial technologies, which almost matched foreign counterparts, were proudly displayed, but for industries and technologies Korea fell behind the museum exhibits avoided juxtaposing them with advanced counterparts in foreign countries in order to hide technological and economic inferiority. The National Science Museum in the 1990s represented national pride by demonstrating the ingenuity of Korean indigenous science with displays on traditional science and scientific heritage. The value of the world’s first scientific heritage was explained in detail with the development of modern science and technology, whereas exhibits of scientific heritages without such rationale tried to find hidden scientific principles and display them to demonstrate the scientific ingenuity of the Korean nation. As Korean capability of science and technology significantly increased in the 2000s, the Gwacheon National Science Museum extended its representation on national pride to what were hidden before. Ordinary household implements, previously considered ...