Relics of Empire Underground

The Making of Dark Heritage in Contemporary Japan

Bibliographic Data

ID12349694
AuthorsJung-Sun N Han (0000-0001-9780-0597, corresponding author)
Year2016
Volume40
Issue2
Pages287-302
Publication date2016-02-11
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAsian Studies Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1035-7823 • E-ISSN: 1467-8403
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/10357823.2016.1140719
OpenAlexW2321167243
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited17

This paper examines civil activities to protect and conserve the underground war-related sites in contemporary Japan. Conservation movements rooted in local communities and centred on the Japanese Network to Protect War-Related Sites are making efforts to transform the dark heritage of war-related sites into cultural property in an attempt to integrate diverse wartime experiences. In delving into the heritage-making practices, I introduce local movements in Okinawa and Okayama. Okinawa hosts the first underground war-related site to become a cultural property, the Haebaru Army Hospital Bunkers, while Okayama struggles to create another one by making the Kamejima Mountain Underground Plant a dark heritage site. I argue that these conservation movements are challenging the homogenising national war memory by attaching ethnically diversified vernacular memories to the underground sites. In doing so, these underground war-related sites have become public spaces where new forms of social engagement are negotiated and contested

Archaeology · Art · Bunker · Cultural heritage · Empire · Geography · Political science · Spanish Civil War · Vernacular · Archaeological Research and Protection · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · History · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration

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