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"Nationalism and collective memory Korea."
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History Is Not Destiny: Colonial Compensation Litigation and South Korea–Japan Relations
Recent colonial compensation lawsuits reflect the metamorphosis of historical grievances in collective public memory into tort claims in private law. This article provides a synthetic view of the nexus of colonial law and history in South Korea–Japan relations, focusing on cross-border litigation brought by former forced laborers and victims of sexual servitude known as “comfort women” during World War II. The concept of public policy (ordre public) in Korea, which has colonial origins, has long served law courts as the standard for deciding the validity of a juristic act. But of late heavy reliance on the general clauses of law in legal proceedings has risked turning history and law into handmaids of national spirit, muddling historical accountability and legal liability. Improvement of South Korea–Japan ties should start from a more accurate understanding of colonial laws and a rounded appreciation of their shared legal history.
Journal Article
History textbooks and the wars in Asia
Over the past fifteen years Northeast Asia has witnessed growing intraregional exchanges and interactions, especially in the realms of culture and economy. Still, the region cannot escape from the burden of history. This book examines the formation of historical memory in four Northeast Asian societies (China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan) and the United States focusing on the period from the beginning of the Sino-Japanese war in 1931 until the formal conclusion of the Pacific War with the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951. The contributors analyse the recent efforts of Korean, Japanese, and Chinese scholars to write a 'common history' of Northeast Asia and question the underlying motivations for their efforts and subsequent achievements. In doing so, they contend that the greatest obstacle to reconciliation in Northeast Asia lies in the existence of divided, and often conflicting, historical memories. The book argues that a more fruitful approach lies in understanding how historical memory has evolved in each country and been incorporated into respective master narratives. Through uncovering the existence of different master narratives, it is hoped, citizens will develop a more self-critical, self-reflective approach to their own history and that such an introspective effort has the potential to lay the foundation for greater self- and mutual understanding and eventual historical reconciliation in the region. This book will be essential reading for students and scholars of Asian history, Asian education and international relations in East Asia.
eBook
Politicising the Manhwa Representations of the Comfort Women: with an Emphasis on the Angoulême International Festival Controversy
This article discusses the nexus between comics, collective historical memory and politics in the context of the contemporary relationship between Japan and South Korea by examining the graphic manhwa narratives dealing with the memories of comfort women that were exhibited during the Angoulême Comics Festival in France in early 2014. With a theme of ‘memories of war and gendered violence’, commemorating the centennial of the outbreak of the First World War, the event that accommodated a special exhibition for Korean manhwa attracted controversy because of its political nature, drawing heavy media attention and sparking public debate and diplomatic quarrels. Adding academic depth to this cultural and diplomatic clash by linking the concepts of soft power foreign policy and cultural citizenship, this paper investigates what made the cultural event politically tainted and how the politicisation debate between the two countries escalated throughout the event. Existing studies on soft power foreign policy often leave the core contents of the ‘soft’ part unexplained. This article, in contrast, explores the current limits of accommodating cultural expressions of historical memories through an in-depth analysis of the exhibited artworks and the two countries’ nationalised soft power diplomacy. It argues that both governments’ direct and indirect intervention in the cultural realm nurtured irreconcilable cultural representations in this particular theme and genre of cultural representation under the current research.
Journal Article
The ambiguities of amending historical injustices and espousing a shared collective memory: the WWII forced labour narratives in Germany and Japan
This paper examines WWII forced labour memory politics in Germany and
Japan by drawing from Barkan’s concept of amending historical injustices. After lengthy
negotiations, Germany reached in 2000 a milestone agreement compensating victims
individually, while in Japan, settlements, consolation payments and apologies have
been overshadowed by a revival of revisionist historical narratives and victim denial. It is
argued that the official recognition of forced labour as historical injustice made a mutually
acceptable outcome possible in Germany and helped to shape a genuine historical
memory in victim nations. In Japan, by contrast, an alliance of politicians, bureaucrats and
academics has been reconsecrating revisionism as official position. The revisionist inability
to recognize victims and admit mistakes has implications for South Korea as the rift
between right-wing pro-revisionists and left-wing nationalists divides the country and
prevents the formation of a shared collective memory. Unintended consequences have
dimmed prospects for a settlement.
Journal Article
Competing Logics of Commemoration Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism in East Asia's History Problem
Recent studies in collective memory point to the emergence of cosmopolitan commemoration that takes humanity, rather than nationality, as a primary frame of reference. But these studies have yet to specify how cosmopolitan commemoration emerges and articulates with existing nationalist commemoration. To solve this problem, we examine the \"history problem\" between Japan and South Korea by focusing on how relevant political and civic actors negotiated cosmopolitanism and nationalism in commemorating Japan's past colonial rule and wartime atrocities. In light of our historical analysis, we argue that a synthesis of theories of institutional logics and social movements is useful in illuminating how the emergence of cosmopolitan commemoration is embedded in specific networks of political and civic actors as mobilizing structures, and how the content and trajectory of its articulation with nationalist commemoration depends on political opportunities available to competing networks aligned differently with the two logics of commemoration.
Journal Article
War, Firsthand, at a Distance
One of the most important battlefields of the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) was 203-Meter Hill. Located in the city of Lushun on the tip of the Liaodong Peninsula, 203-Meter Hill also became one of the most important and contested places of memory in the Japanese empire. This article explores the production of collective memories at 203-Meter Hill. It does so from the perspective of Japanese and Korean travelers from the very first student tours in 1906 to the late 1930s. It pays particular attention to how changes in territory and ideology produced changes in commemorative practices. It argues that the history of 203-Meter Hill as a site for producing Japanese national identity is only one part of the battlefield’s story. Reading the accounts of Korean travelers alongside those of Japanese travelers, the article shows that the site produced powerful senses of Korean national identity as much as it did Japanese ones.
Journal Article
“Who Was Park Chung-hee?” The Memorial Landscape and National Identity Politics in South Korea
President Park Chung-hee played a predominant role in shaping South Korean history, yet he remains a controversial figure. This paper explores the way this controversy has manifested itself in the memorial landscape and its significance within the context of national identity politics. It is argued that the debate between conservatives and progressives over the memory of Park has complicated the discourse beyond the prevalent focus on ethnic nationalism. The increasing place allocated for Park in the memorial landscape since 2008 is a tangible manifestation of a memory boom that appeared a decade earlier. Thus, the creation of an encouraging atmosphere in this regard can explain the correlation between the establishment of consecutive conservative governments and said trend. The way the memorial landscape has changed has offered an opportunity to think about a form of national identity which is more intricate. However, with the socio-political camps entrenched in their respective positions, the high-profile controversy has reflected the competing agendas and the degree to which the two sides differ on the fundamental components of national identity. The controversy over the memory of Park has thus both reinforced the divide between the political camps and demonstrated the extent to which it is deep.
Journal Article
The Power of Memory in Modern Japan
Due to their symbolic and iconographic meanings, expressions of 'collective memory' constitute the mental topography of a society and make a powerful contribution to its cultural, political and social identity. In Japan, the subject of 'memory' has prompted a huge response in recent years.
eBook
Discovery of Disputes: Collective Memories on Textbooks and Japanese–South Korean Relations
Historical perceptions in Northeast Asian countries, especially South Korea and Japan, can be observed through analysis of school history textbooks and the disputes related to these publications. Looking at this issue through a long-term lens it becomes apparent that today’s perceptions are direct descendants of the perceptions that appeared during the 1980s. This article shows that it is impossible to explain the escalation of the disputes through solely viewing the changes in descriptions of history in Japanese textbooks, but that interaction between China, Japan, and South Korea has been involved. South Korean society overlooked the Japanese textbook issue before the 1982 dispute. Thus it seems that only when China and some members of the Japanese populace first questioned the history being written and published in Japan that South Korea began questioning the changes being made to Japanese textbooks.
Journal Article