The Politics of Memory: Nation, Individual and Self

Ueno, Chizuko; Sand, Jordan

doi:10.1353/ham.2005.0001

Cited by 21 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…After decades of silence surrounding the ‘comfort women’ in Korea post-1945, the South Korean feminist movement took up the issue in the 1980s, fuelling public debate about the sexual violence endured by Korean women at the hands of the Japanese (Ueno and Sand, 1999: 137). At the heart of the movement is the Seoul-based Korean Council, founded in 1990 by a feminist collective of university-educated South Korean women.…”

Section: Precursors: Testimony and Transnational Memory Activismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mnemonic reciprocity: Activating Sydney’s Comfort Women statue for decolonial memory

Graefenstein,

Kennedy

2024

Memory Studies

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This article introduces the concept of mnemonic reciprocity to examine the dynamics of exchanges between local memory activists and other community members after a Comfort Women statue was installed in 2016 on the grounds of Sydney’s Ashfield Uniting Church. Contributing to the scholarship on grassroots memory activism and on the global travels of the Comfort Women statue, we take a feminist, decolonial approach that identifies points of connectivity between the disparate communities that have come together in the semi-public location of the church for selected commemorative events. Based on an analysis of the ways in which mnemonic reciprocity is fostered through exchanges between Korean-Australians and Indigenous Australians, we suggest that the statue’s commemorative functions, when activated on the level of the local, are doubly decolonial. The Comfort Women statue activates the memory of Japan’s imperialism in South Korea and beyond in the semi-public locality of suburban Sydney. In addition, when articulated critically, the Peace Statue can help to decolonise memory in Australia, contributing to intimate, small-scale acts of a reconciliatory and reparative nature. This case, we argue, demonstrates first that it is crucial to identify the particularities governing the place in which a carrier of memory, such as a statue, is re-territorialised. Second, by showing that localised acts of mnemonic reciprocity can strengthen community relations, it offers an alternative to the nationalist memory wars between South Korea and Japan that have been repeated in many diasporic communities where statues have been erected.

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Section: Precursors: Testimony and Transnational Memory Activismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mnemonic reciprocity: Activating Sydney’s Comfort Women statue for decolonial memory

Graefenstein,

Kennedy

2024

Memory Studies

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“…Because Japan's comfort women system had its foundation in a public prostitution system organized in the 19th century, Japanese conservatives have claimed that the wartime system was simply a continuation of a state‐regulated enterprise (cited in Ueno & Sand, , pp. 120–152).…”

Section: Memory Human Rights and Reconciliation: The Comfort Women mentioning

confidence: 99%

Memorializing Comfort Women: Memory and Human Rights in Korea‐Japan Relations

Kim

2014

Asian Politics and Policy

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Current paradigms of human rights and reconciliation call for democratization of memories, with former victims interjecting their interpretations of the past, challenging the versions recollected by the powerful. The trajectory of comfort women issues has implications not only for the Japanese democracy, but also for Korea. The shifts in memory are about respect for human rights and the beginning of a reconciliatory journey between former adversaries. Reconciliation involves multiple stages of self-reflexivity, acknowledgement, redistributive justice, corrective mechanisms, and a final movement of forgiving. In order to transcend the counterproductive blame games, memory, human rights, and reconciliation need to be interwoven. The rising global awareness of human rights helps to highlight the accountability of the individual, once largely overshadowed by groups, with political leaders, and nation-states. Memories are no longer confined within national borders. As the comfort women monuments in Korea and the United States suggest, they become increasingly transnational and even global.

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“…One Japanese scholar and feminist attended the conference and viewed it is an opportunity for the public sphere to act as a venue for deliberation free of the strictures of state-dominated narratives. However, she found that her Korean and Chinese counterparts viewed her as Japanese first and a scholar and feminist second, highlighting the limits of the public sphere to resolve sensitive issues such as the Comfort Women (Ueno, 1999).…”

Section: Dialogues In Northeast Asiamentioning

confidence: 99%

A Deliberative Approach to Northeast Asia's Contested History

He¹,

Hundt²

2012

Japanese Journal of Political Science

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AbstractThe failure to reconcile views of the past and to address historical injustice has damaged inter-state relations in Northeast Asia. Joint committees, dialogues, and the participation of civil society have been used to address historical issues, but scholars in the disciplines of international relations and area studies have largely ignored these dialogues and deliberative forums. At the same time, there is an emergent theoretical literature on how deliberative democracy can address ethnic conflicts and historical injustice. There is a serious disconnect or distance between the theoretical literature on the resolution of conflicts via deliberation on the one hand, and empirical studies of deliberative approach in East Asia on the other. This article aims to address this shortcoming in the study of the politics of historical dispute in Northeast Asia by proposing a deliberative approach to history disputes and highlighting the achievements, limits, and dynamics of deliberation. Through mapping and comparative testing, we confirm that deliberation offers some potential for a departure from nationalist mentalities and a shift towards a consciousness of regional history in Northeast Asia. Our empirical test of the utility of the deliberative approach suggests that a new model for addressing regional disputes may be emerging.

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The Politics of Memory: Nation, Individual and Self

Cited by 21 publications

References 0 publications

Mnemonic reciprocity: Activating Sydney’s Comfort Women statue for decolonial memory

Mnemonic reciprocity: Activating Sydney’s Comfort Women statue for decolonial memory

Memorializing Comfort Women: Memory and Human Rights in Korea‐Japan Relations

A Deliberative Approach to Northeast Asia's Contested History

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